[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 21 (Tuesday, March 1, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1864-S1865]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DR. HIRAM C. POLK, JR., TRIBUTE
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to honor a
Kentuckian who has dedicated his life to saving the lives of others.
Dr. Hiram C. Polk, Jr., the chairman of the University of Louisville's
Department of Surgery in Louisville, KY, has become a leader in the
medical field due to his relentless push for excellence.
In his 34 years as chairman of the department, Dr. Polk has trained
over 200 surgeons who have gone on to become the best in their
profession. He is the world's leading authority on surgical wound
infections. He developed the now common application of perioperative
antibiotics--that is when the patient takes antibiotics before surgery,
so the medication is in the patient's tissue during operation.
Under Dr. Polk, the department has provided over $100 million in free
health care to Louisville area indigent patients. The department has
performed two successful hand transplants and the world's first
implantation of an AbioCor artificial heart. And Dr. Polk is an
honorary fellow of the very prestigious Royal College of Surgeons in
Edinburgh, Scotland, the oldest surgical college in the world.
Dr. Polk has also found time to engage in one of Kentucky's greatest
passions--horse racing. He is an owner and breeder of several
thoroughbreds, including Mrs. Revere, a four-time stakes winner at the
racetrack that is home to the Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs.
No wonder, then, that upon Dr. Polk's retirement after such a
preeminent career, his colleagues have decided to honor him by naming
the University of Louisville surgery department the Hiram C. Polk
Department of Surgery. He is a model citizen for all Kentuckians, and
has earned this Senate's respect.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to print in the Record an
article from The Louisville Courier-Journal about Dr. Polk's lifesaving
career.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[[Page S1865]]
[From the Louisville Courier-Journal, Feb. 4, 2005]
A Passion for Excellence; U of L Doctor Leaves Enduring Mark Training
Surgeons
(By Laura Ungar)
Part drill sergeant, part modern-day Socrates, Dr. Hiram C.
Polk Jr. briskly led medical residents and students through
University Hospital on early morning rounds this week.
Stopping in front of patients' rooms, Polk called on
residents to describe each case, then peppered them with
questions.
Sometimes he offered a compliment, such as ``Wonderful
question'' or ``That's exactly right.'' But more often, he
displayed a characteristic toughness, and his trainees
usually answered, ``Yes, sir.''
``You're lost,'' he admonished the group outside one
patient's room.
``You're not betting your life,'' he said to a resident
assessing a patient. ``You're betting his life.''
Polk is stepping down today after more than three decades
as chairman of the University of Louisville's surgery
department, where he has trained a legion of surgeons--about
230, which U of L officials say is more than any other
current surgical chair in the country.
Colleagues say a relentless push for excellence marked
Polk's tenure. That has given U of L's program a national
reputation as the Marine Corps of surgical residencies and
left him with a nickname based on one instance from his early
career: ``Hiram Fire-em.''
But it also has made him a teacher students always
remember, a strict father figure who strives to make them
better and leaves them with an internal voice telling them to
push themselves.
``Dr. Polk demands excellence from his trainees and will
not accept mediocrity. And by demanding it, he often gets
it,'' said Dr. Kelly McMasters, a former resident under Polk
who is now the Sam and Lolita Weakley Professor of Surgical
Oncology and director of U of L's division of surgical
oncology.
Polk could go a little too far, ``could be too tough,''
said Dr. Frank Miller, a professor of surgery at U of L.
But Polk makes no apologies. Surgery ``is a serious, big
deal and you need to take that seriously,'' he said.
``Striving to be the best you can be sometimes means telling
people, `I think that's stupid.' ''
Colleagues say Polk, 68, held himself to those same high
standards as he has helped build a nationally renowned
surgery department.
He has written or co-written hundreds of papers and journal
articles, dozens of textbook chapters and numerous books, and
served as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Surgery
for 18 years.
He pioneered the practice of giving antibiotics within an
hour of surgery to stave off infection, which has become
commonplace.
And McMasters said residents who have risen to Polk's
challenge earn his loyalty, and return it. ``Most people are
pathologically loyal to Dr. Polk. He stands by his people 100
percent. . . . He's made my career. While he was firm and
strict as a teacher, he also has a very benevolent and loving
side.''
Life-changing discussion
Polk attended Millsaps College in his hometown of Jackson,
Miss., at the urging of his father. He graduated at the top
of his class, and as a favor to a professor, he said, he
applied to Harvard Medical School, only to turn down a chance
to attend on scholarship because it was too far away. But
Harvard sent a premier physiologist to try to persuade Polk
to change his mind--an hourlong discussion that determined
the direction of his life.
``He reinforced some of what my father said,'' Polk said.
``He said I ought to go, end of discussion.''
Polk hated medical school until he got interested in
surgery. As a medical resident in St. Louis and a young
doctor and academic in Miami, Polk found mentors to emulate.
His reputation grew, and universities began to court him.
In 1971, at 35, he became U of L's surgery chairman, lured
by the promise of a department with potential, a growing
downtown medical community and a closet attraction to the
horse-racing scene.
One early decision was to not renew the contracts of six of
the residents who were there at the time, earning him the
``Fire-em'' nickname--although he said he has let only five
more people go since then.
Colleagues who knew him during those early years remember
how Polk honed his skills in the aging Louisville General
Hospital, a relic of an older era with long hallways, an open
ward and few of the technological amenities of today. Polk
brought residents on bedside rounds there, firing questions
at them and demanding good answers, recalled Dr. Gordon
Tobin, a U of L professor and director of the division of
plastic and reconstructive surgery.
``He fit right in with the other surgeons I met in that
era,'' Tobin said. ``The surgical personality is very
straightforward and blunt.''
Polk's reputation for demanding excellence was a draw for
some, said Dr. J. David Richardson, a professor and vice
chairman of U of L's surgery department.
``I don't think people have really come here who are really
unaware'' how demanding it would be, Richardson said. ``It's
not a place to come and rest on your laurels and enjoy a
quiet kind of life.''
Dr. William H. Mitchell, a retired surgeon in Richmond,
Ky., was among Polk's early residents. He said Polk expected
him and his peers to be on their game at 7 a.m. ``whether we
were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed or not.''
``If you ran out of gas, you'd better get pumped up. You
were expected to be cogent, coherent and well thought out,''
Mitchell said.
But Polk was mindful of tailoring questions to a trainee's
level of understanding, Mitchell said, and would be hardest
on senior residents. Also, many doctors-in-training saw
something beneath the harshness--intelligence, skill and
passion for his work.
Mitchell remembers a case presented in a conference in
which another resident stabilized the fractured jaw of a
motorcycle accident victim without calling for backup, even
though he had never seen such a fracture.
``He fried him,'' Mitchell said of Polk's response. ``He
said: Don't undertake something you've never done without
backup.''
``No question about it,'' Mitchell said, ``he made all of
us better doctors because he made us think about what we're
doing.''
Family--and horses
Nurturing residents and building a department required long
hours.
``He was busy and gone a lot,'' said his daughter, Susan
Brown, one of two children with his first wife. ``My mom kept
everything running for us.''
That didn't change her love and admiration for him, said
Brown, 44. And she said he has taken an active interest in
the lives of her three sons, attending sporting events with
them and talking medicine with two who have expressed an
interest.
Dr. Susan Galandiuk, Polk's 47-year-old second wife, said
she understands the long hours and is a workaholic herself.
She said Polk routinely gets telephone calls at their East
End home from doctors around the country asking for
professional and personal advice--and sees this as a
compliment, evidence of the relationships he has built over
the years.
Some of Polk's rare hours outside of work have been focused
on his love of horses. He and Richardson together are owner-
breeders whose horses have included Mrs. Revere, a four-time
stakes winner at Churchill Downs in the mid-1980s for which a
stakes race is named.
Richardson sees things in common between surgery and the
horse business, such as the reminders, every time a horse
gets hurt, of the fragility of life and success. Polk sees
common points, too, but noted: ``A good horse is better than
a good resident. You love them, and they try hard to be the
best they can be.''
Polk claims to have mellowed over the years, and links it
to his divorce, his remarriage, and the death of Mrs. Revere,
whose memory still chokes him up.
He said he also gained new perspective through four major
operations, including one for prostate cancer. And he has had
to adjust to changing times in medicine; he has been sued for
medical malpractice, usually in an administrative capacity,
and has had to work within new national rules limiting
residents' working hours to 80 a week.
But current trainees and friends haven't noticed a
mellowing. Cornelia Poston, a third-year medical student,
prepares diligently for rounds by writing questions on note
cards, studying the night before and carrying a book called
``Pocket Surgery'' inside her white coat.''
You strive for perfection, and he demands that,'' said Dr.
Bryce Schuster, chief administrative resident. ``At times it
could be intimidating. But fear is a great motivator.''
Mitchell agreed. ``The residents still get sweaty palms,''
he said, ``but they still stand and deliver and give a
straight answer to a straight question.''
To celebrate Polk's career, colleagues, residents and
others have launched a $5 million campaign to rename the
department in his honor and secure an endowment for clinical,
education and research activities.
But his true legacy, colleagues say, may be best symbolized
by a picture of a tree in his office, with names of the
surgeons he has trained near the many branches.
____________________