[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 6 (Tuesday, February 1, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: February 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
         CONGRESSMAN DALE E. KILDEE HONORS DR. FLEMING BARBOUR

                                 ______


                          HON. DALE E. KILDEE

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 1, 1994

  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to encourage my colleagues to 
read the following article that recently appeared in my hometown 
newspaper, The Flint Journal. The article chronicles the wonderful 
contributions of Dr. Fleming Barbour, a long-time resident of Flint and 
a dear friend of mine, who recently closed his ophthalmology practice 
after 53 years.
  Mr. Speaker, Dr. Fleming Barbour has been a positive influence in our 
community. He has been a leader in the medical community, and has 
worked tirelessly to improve the quality of life for the residents of 
the Flint area. This article does a superb job in describing Dr. 
Barbour's illustrious career, and I want to wish him the best in all of 
his future endeavors.

                [From the Flint Journal, Dec. 25, 1993]

       Eyes Had It: Opthalmologist Closes Up Shop After 53 Years

                            (By Mike Stobbe)

       The ``Barbour Shop'' is closing--after 53 years.
       ``Yes, I'm all done,'' said Dr. Fleming A. Barbour, 84-
     year-old ophthalmologist and pillar of the community, who 
     closed his Flint practice this week.
       ``I'll do a little traveling, and some things downtown,'' 
     said Barbour, as he prepared to vacate his longtime office on 
     the fifth floor of the Mott Foundation Building.
       He has no plans to leave Flint, though.
       ``Flint's been good to me,'' he said.
       And Barbour has been good to Flint, serving as an officer 
     and/or energetic fund-raiser for a long list of community 
     organizations, including--to name a few--the YMCA, Genesee 
     County Medical Society, Flint Academy of Surgery, the Flint 
     Institute of Music and the Greater Flint Council of Churches.
       Barbour is still chairman of the board of Mott Children's 
     Health Center, the post he said he is most proud of, and 
     still involved in fund-raising activities.
       He will stay active in community work, he said, and next 
     month will again make his annual pilgrimage to the Honduras, 
     where he goes as a representative of the Christian Medical 
     Society to provide eye care to people who might otherwise go 
     without it.
       But as for his day job, well, that's over, Barbour said.
       It has been a rich medical career. Barbour has seen close 
     to 20,000 patients through the years, and done close to 1,000 
     surgeries.
       Eye medicine has changed a great deal in Barbour's 53 
     years.
       ``It's become a highly specialized,'' he said.
       ``When I was in training you learned to do everything. But 
     now the work is more defined, and the people are more 
     specialized in the work.
       ``And the quality of work is definitely improving. If all 
     you're doing is retinal attachments, you're going to be much 
     better than someone who only does one or two a month.''
       There also are technical advances. Operations are routinely 
     done with a microscope that makes the surgery area easier to 
     see.
       Another advance is the use of sutures to sew up the eye 
     after cataract surgery, he said.
       ``I started in 1937, and we didn't do any sutures. We just 
     opened the eye up, took out the cataract, restored the eyes 
     back and hoped it healed.
       ``We put patches on both eyes (and) put the patient in bed 
     for 10 days,'' placing a sandbag next to the head to keep the 
     patient from moving, Barbour said.
       These days, cataract surgery is an outpatient procedure, 
     with surgeons going in and replacing the deteriorated lens in 
     the eye with a plastic implant, and the corneal incision is 
     fixed with fine nylon thread half the diameter of a human 
     hair.
       ``It's amazing,'' said Barbour, who stopped doing surgery 
     at age 75.
       Beyond the tools and techniques, Barbour also recalled the 
     many patients he enjoyed working with.
       ``I worked on a man who was 98 years old. He wondered 
     whether to have it (cataract surgery done). He said, `I may 
     not be around much (longer).' He did have it, and he lived to 
     be 104. He was always very grateful he had it done,'' Barbour 
     said.
       A 95-year-old woman requested a prescription change for her 
     glasses. Barbour said, and the following exchange took place.
       ``I said, `I really can't help. Your eyes are just getting 
     older.'
       ``She said she wanted her glasses changed because she 
     wanted to see the songbook in church better.
       ``I said, * * * `At your age, you should know all those 
     songs.'
       ``She said, `Young man, don't get smart.'''
       But perhaps the story Barbour is most fond of involves his 
     long-time affiliation with the University of Michigan Medical 
     School, where Barbour did his medical training and chose his 
     specialty.
       In the early 1960s, there was a shortage of eye doctors in 
     Flint--Barbour said at one point appointments were being made 
     with him a year in advance--and Barbour agreed to have a 
     medical school senior join him in his office on Saturdays for 
     experience and some pay.
       ``Then it got to be a habit, and over the years we had 
     about 25 of them,'' Barbour said. ``And I heard the joke up 
     there was that `We're going to go work in the Barbour 
     Shop.'''

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