[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 96 (Tuesday, June 6, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3284-S3285]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

                                 ______
                                 

                  REMEMBERING DR. ALBERT H. OWENS, JR.

 Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, this Thursday, the Sydney Kimmel 
Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins is hosting an event that 
includes a memorial cancer research symposium and a dinner in honor of 
the late Dr. Albert H. Owens, Jr., who died this past January at the 
age of 90. It is fitting to pay tribute to Al Owens, who served as 
president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and was one of our Nation's 
pioneering oncologists.
  Al Owens was born into a medical family. His father, Dr. Albert H. 
Owens, Sr., was a dentist; his mother, Grace Masters, was a head 
surgical nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital. He originally matriculated to 
Harvard University, but his college education was interrupted by his 
service as a medical officer in the Navy during the Korean war. He 
subsequently earned his bachelor's and medical degrees from the Johns 
Hopkins University and the school of medicine, respectively.
  He joined the faculty in 1956. A year later, A. McGehee Harvey, who 
was head of the school of medicine's department of medicine, 
established a cancer research and treatment division within the 
department. He asked Al to head the new division. There was a slight 
problem: The Johns Hopkins Hospital did not have available space. So Al 
moved inpatient, clinical, and research oncology activities to 
Baltimore City Hospitals, now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. He 
opened Johns Hopkins' first cancer chemotherapy unit at Baltimore City 
Hospitals in 1961, making it one of the first university-based centers 
of its kind nationwide. In 1973, Al was named the first director of the 
Johns Hopkins Oncology Center, which had won Federal designation as one 
of the Nation's first comprehensive cancer centers. In 1977, he moved 
the center from Baltimore City Hospitals back to the main campus, where 
it was housed in a brand new facility, named the Oncology Center. Over 
the next decade, the Johns Hopkins Oncology Center--now named the Johns 
Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center--became one of the most prestigious cancer 
centers in the country.
  Al was named president of the Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1987, but he 
relinquished the presidency after only 18 months so that he could 
devote all of his time to developing a new oncology center for the 
hospital, but during his brief tenure as president, he decreed that the 
hospital would become smoke-free. We take smoke-free buildings for 
granted now; 30 years ago, it was a revolutionary move.
  Thanks to Al's tireless devotion, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg 
Building was completed in January 2000, followed shortly thereafter by 
the opening of the Bunting Family and Jacob and Hilda Blaustein Family 
Cancer Research Building. In 2006, the David H. Koch Cancer Research 
Building opened. These two research buildings are connected by the 
Albert H. Owens Auditorium, which was named in his honor.
  Al was a beloved teacher and mentor, as well as a superb doctor, 
researcher, and administrator. His enthusiasm about cancer research was 
limitless. He frequently would visit young faculty members--
unannounced--asking them to describe the most exciting research project 
they were working on that day. Al is survived by his wife, Sally W. 
MacConnell; children Albert Henry Owens III, Elizabeth Ann Owens, David 
Tilden Owens, and Sarah Louise Owens;

[[Page S3285]]

and five grandchildren. The Baltimore Sun ran an obituary at the time 
of his death; I ask that it be printed in the Record following my 
remarks.
  There is an epitaph to Sir Christopher Wren, who is buried in St. 
Paul's Cathedral in London, which he designed. The epitaph reads, ``Si 
monumentum requiris, circumspice.'' The English translation of the 
Latin is ``if you seek his monument, look around.'' This is a fitting 
epitaph for Dr. Albert H. Owens, Jr., too, but it is not just the 
buildings dedicated to cancer research that you will see. Look around, 
and you will see people, probably including members of your family and 
your friends, who are alive today because of Al's unrelenting 
dedication to finding treatments and cures for cancer. They are his 
living monuments. I encourage my colleagues to join me in paying 
tribute to this wonderful and extraordinary man.
  The material follows:

                [From the Baltimore Sun, Jan. 26, 2017]

Albert H. Owens Jr., Pioneering Oncologist and Former Hopkins Hospital 
                            President, Dies

       Dr. Albert H. Owens Jr., a pioneering oncologist who helped 
     establish new ways to fight cancer and was a former president 
     of Johns Hopkins Hospital, died of congestive heart failure 
     Jan. 13 at Hopkins. The Churchville resident was 90.
       Born on Staten Island, N.Y., he was the son of a dentist, 
     Dr. Albert H. Owens Sr., and Grace Masters, a Mount Sinai 
     Hospital head surgical nurse. He was a graduate of a high 
     school in Port Richmond, N.Y.
       His studies at Harvard University were interrupted by his 
     Navy service in Korea, and he earned bachelor's and medical 
     degrees from the Johns Hopkins University.
       He became a Hopkins researcher and worked in liver 
     metabolism. Hopkins colleagues said that in 1957, Dr. A. 
     McGehee Harvey, who headed the Hopkins medical department, 
     created a cancer research and treatment division.
       Dr. Harvey asked Dr. Owens to head the new oncology 
     division.
       ``At first, they gave him a card table, a secretary and a 
     PH meter,'' said Dr. Donald S. Coffey, a colleague for many 
     years who is a professor emeritus of urology, oncology and 
     pathology. ``Up to this time, there was no treatment for 
     cancer other than surgery and radiation. Al went to work 
     immediately and started drawing blood from his patients.''
       The hospital did not have room for the new treatment 
     service, and Dr. Owens saw his patients and conducted 
     research at the old Baltimore City Hospitals, now Hopkins 
     Bayview Medical Center.
       ``He found a place in the backwater of the old buildings 
     there and soon assembled a first-class team,'' said Dr. 
     Coffey. ``His great genius was his ability to bring great 
     scientists and clinicians together. He would also say, `We 
     have to do everything right for this patient.' ''
       He recalled Dr. Owens as a quiet listener who would talk 
     about patients as though they were his own children.
       ``Al Owens was one of the great figures in cancer. . . . He 
     should receive a great deal of the credit for what cancer 
     care and research have become today,'' said Dr. William G. 
     Nelson, Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center director. ``He was a 
     wonderfully thoughtful person and was not prone to hyperbole. 
     He liked people who worked on cancer seriously. And like 
     great leaders, he distributed the credit.''
       A Hopkins statement described Dr. Owens as ``a slightly 
     bashful, bow tie-wearing researcher and clinician.'' In 1973, 
     he became the first director of the Johns Hopkins Oncology 
     Center. In 1977, he moved his work back to Hopkins' East 
     Baltimore campus and a new oncology center. Much expanded, 
     the facility is now named the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive 
     Cancer Center.
       ``Al was an exceptional leader who believed that the best 
     way to foster science that would improve patient outcomes was 
     to put basic scientists and clinicians into the same building 
     so they would naturally bond as team members sharing 
     projects, discoveries, frustrations and coffee on a daily 
     basis,'' Hopkins professor Dr. Stuart A. Grossman said in a 
     statement. ``He radiated interest and enthusiasm when it came 
     to cancer research and frequently dropped unannounced into 
     the offices of young faculty members, asking them to describe 
     the most exciting research project they were working on that 
     day.''
       Dr. Owens was named Johns Hopkins Hospital president in 
     1987 and held the post for 18 months. He then resumed his 
     work fighting cancer, but not before he instituted a smoke-
     free policy throughout the hospital. An auditorium at the 
     medical campus is named in his honor.
       ``Dr. Owens was not only a superb oncologist and mentor, 
     but a first-rate gentleman,'' Dr. David Ettinger, Hopkins 
     professor of oncology, said in a statement.
       Dr. Owens was a past president of the Maryland division of 
     the American Cancer Society, the Association of American 
     Cancer Institutes and the American Society of Clinical 
     Oncology.
       Dr. Owens resided at Medical Hall, a historic Churchville 
     home, where he cultivated bee colonies.
       Plans for a memorial service at Johns Hopkins Hospital are 
     pending.
       Survivors include his wife of 20 years, Sally W. 
     MacConnell, a Johns Hopkins administrator; two sons, Albert 
     Henry Owens III of Washington, N.J., and David Tilden Owens 
     of Minneapolis; two daughters, Elizabeth Ann Owens of 
     Baltimore and Sarah Louise Owens of England; and five 
     grandchildren.

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