[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.

                          ____________________