[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 34 (Wednesday, March 13, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN HONOR OF DR. MICHAEL DeBAKEY

                                 ______


                            HON. KEN BENTSEN

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 13, 1996

  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend Dr. Michael DeBakey of 
Houston for his induction into the Health Care Hall of Fame on March 
10, 1996. I am proud to represent Dr. DeBakey, who is director of the 
DeBakey Heart Center at Methodist Hospital in Houston and chancellor 
emeritus of the Baylor College of Medicine, also in Houston.
  Dr. DeBakey first emerged as a medical legend in 1964 when he 
performed the first successful coronary bypass surgery. However, this 
distinguished achievement is just one of the many remarkable 
achievements during Dr. DeBakey's career.
  Through six decades of research, Dr. DeBakey has fought the most 
indiscriminate of killers: heart disease. He has operated on patients 
from international statesmen to indigent people for whom he donated his 
services. The doctor's patients have traveled from more than 80 
countries to be healed by his expertise. All told, his talent has 
mended more than 80,000 human hearts.
  Dr. DeBakey is a perfectionist for whom a 17- to 18-hour day is 
typical. The doctor's medical expertise as well as these extremely long 
days have led to more than 40 prestigious medical awards.
  Dr. DeBakey's career truly has been medical history in the making. 
Back in 1932, while still in Tulane Medical School, he developed the 
roller pump, an instrument that became the pumping system for the open-
heart surgery used around the world. Following services as a surgical 
consultant to the U.S. Army Surgeon General during World War II, he 
returned to Tulane as an assistant professor of surgery.
  In 1948, he was selected chairman of the newly formed department of 
surgery at Baylor. When Dr. DeBakey first arrived, Baylor did not have 
an affiliated hospital so he suggested that Harris County's public 
hospital, Jefferson Davis Hospital, serve as Baylor's teaching 
hospital. It was at Jefferson Davis Hospital that Dr. DeBakey performed 
the first abdominal aortic aneurysm replacement in the United States 
and the first heart valve replacement in Houston. In 1952, Dr. DeBakey 
again made history by developing the first Dacron artificial grafts 
that would later serve as replacements for diseased arteries. One year 
later, he performed the first successful endarterectomy; a procedure in 
which the lesion is peeled away from an artery wall. This treatment 
helped reduce a major cause of strokes.
  Before long, Houston was home to the world's largest cardiovascular 
center in terms of heart surgeries performed.
  Dr. DeBakey has played a role in nearly every aspect of health care. 
He has been an adviser to almost every President and was influential in 
some of the most important milestones of health policy. He was 
instrumental in establishing the National Library of Medicine, mobile 
army surgical hospitals [MASH], and the Department of Veterans Affairs 
hospital system.
  The Greater Houston area is proud of Dr. DeBakey's accomplishments 
and grateful for all that he has contributed to our community. That 
gratitude is shared by millions of people around the world who have 
benefited either personally from his medical care or from products and 
knowledge derived from his medical research. Dr. Michael DeBakey has 
improved all of our lives.

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