To award a Congressional Gold Medal to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

It is my singular honor to stand before the House today to support H.R. 1154, a bill that Mr. Green is the lead author of, which he has coauthored with Mr. Burgess and I and other members of the Texas delegation, which Senator Hutchison has carried in the Senate, to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Michael DeBakey.

Al Green and I are proud to represent the Texas Medical Center in Houston, the largest assembly of medical institutions and hospitals, learning facilities in the world, and certainly the greatest collection of medical talent, human talent in the entire world. And Dr. Michael DeBakey has had an impact on medicine based out of the Texas Medical Center that just simply cannot be overstated. And my friend Al Green has spoken so eloquently and so well of many of Dr. DeBakey's accomplishments. I could not agree more that if the Congressional Gold Medal did not exist, it certainly should be created just for Dr. Michael DeBakey.

He is an educator, surgeon, innovator. As Mr. Green has said, Dr. DeBakey comes from Louisiana, the oldest of five children. He was born in 1908. And it is important for people listening to know that this great good man is 99 years old, in great good health, is still active, and is, I hope, watching this afternoon.

He received both his bachelor's, his master's, and his medical degrees all from Tulane University in New Orleans and completed his internship at the Charity Hospital and his residency at the University of Strasbourg, France and Heidelberg, Germany.

At the age of 23, and still a medical student, he reported a major invention, the roller pump for blood transfusions, which later became a major component of the heart-lung machine used in the first successful open heart operation. And while Dr. DeBakey was still a resident in surgery, he invented a blood transfusion needle, suture scissors, and a colostomy clamp while still a student. He is also credited with inventing and perfecting countless other medical devices, techniques, and procedures that have saved untold number of lives and led to healthy hearts for millions of people throughout the world. The man is truly a pioneer in ways that I think most people may or may not know. He is a modest good man, and I just can't tell you how proud I am to be here and to be a part of this tonight.

When he returned to the United States in 1937, after completing his European studies, Dr. DeBakey accepted a position on the faculty of Tulane University's School of Medicine Department of Surgery. And although he had already achieved a national reputation as an authority on vascular disease and had a promising career as a surgeon and teacher, Dr. DeBakey volunteered for medical service during World War II, joined the Surgeon General's staff, and rose to the rank of colonel and chief of the surgical consultant's division.

His firsthand knowledge led Dr. DeBakey to make a number of recommendations to properly stage the management of war wounds, which led to the development of the MASH units that we are all so familiar with because of the television show, and today the survival rate of soldiers in the field is remarkable. If they are injured or wounded in combat and defense of this Nation, the surgical attention they get from those mobile army surgical hospitals is a direct result of Dr. DeBakey's work in World War II. And for this contribution, Dr. DeBakey earned the Legion of Merit in 1945.

After World War II, Dr. DeBakey recommended the creation of specialized medical centers in different parts of the United States to treat wounded military personnel returning from the war; and from this recommendation, Dr. DeBakey's ideas led to the creation

of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center System. He also proposed a systematic follow-up of veterans, as he had done so with soldiers in the field, which led to the establishment of the Commission on Veterans Medical Problems of the National Research Council and an extensive VA Medical Center Research program. And in 2003, in honor of Dr. DeBakey's accomplishments, with the help of my friend Al Green and Sheila Jackson-Lee and other members of the Houston delegation, the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Houston, Texas, was renamed the Michael DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

In 1948, Dr. DeBakey moved to Houston and started at the Methodist Hospital in Baylor College of Medicine in the Texas Medical Center. Shortly after he arrived, he secured commitments to improve the institutions and quickly developed the first surgical residency program in the city of Houston. Guided by his vision, Baylor College of Medicine is today one of the most respected health science centers in the Nation and in the world.

In 1969, as Al mentioned, Dr. DeBakey was elected the first president of the Baylor College of Medicine, and today he is chancellor emeritus of the Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. DeBakey has been crucial to the growth of the Methodist Hospital in the Texas Medical Center.

At Methodist, Dr. DeBakey performed many of his groundbreaking surgeries, including the first removal of a carotid artery blockage in 1950.

Today Dr. DeBakey is a senior attending surgeon at the Methodist Hospital.

Convinced that there must be a way to improve existing methods of vascular surgery, Dr. DeBakey went out on his own and purchased fabric from a Houston area fabric store, using a craft he had learned from his mother as a child, Dr. DeBakey created the first Dacron prosthetic artery on his wife's sewing machine. Intensive studies and testing followed, and with the collaboration of a research associate from the Philadelphia College of Textiles and Sciences, a knitting machine was developed that produced the first seamless artificial artery in history called Dacron tubes.

In 1953, Dr. DeBakey performed the first successful procedures to treat patients who suffered aneurysms leading to severe strokes. He later developed a series of innovative surgical techniques for the treatment of aneurysms enabling thousands of lives to be saved in the years ahead.

During Dr. DeBakey's tenure as a member of the Task Force on Medical Services of the Hoover Commission, he initiated the concept and led the movement to establish a national facility for valuable and historical medical papers and artifacts. His efforts led to the dedication on June 12, 1959, of the National Library of Medicine housed at the National Institutes of Health. Today the National Library of Medicine is the world's largest and most prestigious repository of medical archives.

In 1964, President Johnson appointed Dr. DeBakey to the position of chairman of the President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke, which led to the creation of the Regional Medical Programs established ``to encourage and assist in the establishment of regional cooperative arrangements among medical schools, research institutions and hospitals for research and training.''

In 1964, Dr. DeBakey also triggered the most explosive era in modern cardiac surgery when he performed the first successful coronary bypass in history. That's an extraordinary achievement, and everyone should focus on that. Dr. DeBakey was, once again, paving the way for surgeons worldwide to offer hope to thousands of patients who might otherwise succumb to heart disease.

Two years later, Dr. DeBakey made medical history again when he was the first to use, successfully, a partial artificial heart to solve the problems of a patient who could not be weaned from a heart-lung machine following open heart surgery.

And in the mid-1960s, Dr. DeBakey pioneered the field of telemedicine with the first demonstration of open heart surgery to be transmitted overseas by satellite, a technique that is today used extensively in Iraq. When soldiers in the field are injured and brought into the hospital and they need medical care, physicians in the Texas Medical Center, which Al Green and I are so proud to represent, are able to view those procedures live via satellite, of the x-rays, of the CAT scans and the procedure itself being done in Iraq. A doctor sitting in Houston, Texas is able to help observe and offer advice on that procedure to help save those soldiers' lives. And that technique was first pioneered by Dr. DeBakey back in the mid-1960s.

In 1968, Dr. DeBakey supervised the first successful multi-organ transplant where a heart, both kidneys and a lung were transplanted from a single donor to four separate recipients. In 1968.

In 1969, President Johnson bestowed on Dr. DeBakey the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction.

Dr. DeBakey has always focused on education and bringing young people into the field of medicine and strengthening and expanding the reach of our medical schools. And in 1962, he supported an educational outreach program that led to the creation of Houston High School for Health Professions, now recognized as one of the best high schools of its kind in the United States. And in 1996, Houston's High School for Health Professions was renamed the Michael E. DeBakey High School for Health Professions in honor of this great, good man.

And he was recognized by President Reagan in 1985 with the National Medal of Science.

In 1999, Time Magazine chose Dr. DeBakey as one of the 100 Great Americans of the 20th Century and honored him for his pioneering work and innovation in cardiovascular surgery and the artificial heart.

Dr. DeBakey continues his pioneering research today. Working with NASA engineers, he refined existing technology to create the DeBakey ventricular assist device for patients with dying hearts. This device is one tenth the size of current versions and restores the cardiac output of a heart to normal function in order to relieve the patient's failing heart and could eventually eliminate the need for heart transplant in some patients. And, in fact, the technology that Dr. DeBakey was able to develop for the ventricular assist device is very similar to and helped NASA in developing the fuel pumps for the space shuttle, which to this day the space shuttle fuel pumps on those engines are able to move more fuel, more fluid more rapidly than any other pump ever invented. And Dr. DeBakey's work was a key part of that.

I have a particular soft part in my heart. As a member of the Appropriations Committee, I do my best to avoid spending money. The starting answer is no, unless it's medical or scientific research. And when it comes to medical or scientific research, that's our Nation's insurance policy and the investment that we make. And the research that's done at the Texas Medical Center, other medical institutions around the country and in scientific research and in the space program is truly a part of our national insurance policy. And the research work that Dr. DeBakey has done with NASA has truly led to saving lives and improved technological spin-offs in many other areas as well.

In 1999, Dr. DeBakey was one of eight individuals chosen to commemorate the United Nations' International Day for Tolerance and received the prestigious U.N. Lifetime Achievement Award.

In 2000, Dr. DeBakey was recognized by the Library of Congress, which designated him a Living Legend.

Throughout his many years of public service, Dr. DeBakey has been awarded over 50 honorary degrees from colleges, universities and medical schools worldwide, as well as numerous awards from educational institutions, professional and civic organizations and governments worldwide.

I want to again, Mr. Speaker, say thank you to my colleagues, Representative Al Green and Representative Michael Burgess, for bringing this bill to the House floor, and a special thank you to Chairman Barney Frank for expediting its approval through the Financial Services Committee.

I could not agree more with my friend, Al Green. There is no better

way to express the merit of this good man, that if the Congressional Gold Medal did not exist, it truly would need to be invented for Dr. DeBakey. With his extraordinary achievements, his contributions to mankind, to improving the lives and health of not only the people of the United States but of the world, I am proud to join my friend, Al Green, in urging the House to support and pass H.R. 1154 to award the Congressional Gold Medal to Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that we have been joined by the other lead author of this bill, my colleague and good friend from Dallas, Dr. Michael Burgess. And I would like, if I could, at this time to yield time to Dr. Burgess.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate bill (S. 474) to award a congressional gold medal to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on S. 474.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, today we take the final steps in the legislative process to accord the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey a Congressional Gold Medal.

While I am proud to be here at the revelation of this process while we are now revealing all that has taken place and all that has happened for us to have this great opportunity, I must confess that I was not there at the genesis of the process. But, Mr. Speaker, there is one person who has been a constant throughout the entirety of this process, and that one person, Mr. Speaker, is the Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senator from the great State of Texas. She has been consistent in that she has annually filed this bill to get it to this point, and she has been persistent in that she has insisted that we work together so as to cause the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey to have this opportunity.

Mr. Speaker, while I am the original sponsor of the House bill, H.R. 1154, to accord this Congressional Gold Medal, there are many other persons who must be thanked. I want to thank my chairman of the Financial Services Committee, the Honorable Barney

Frank, for the outstanding job that he has done to help get this piece of legislation, the bill that has already passed, out of the committee and to the floor. But he has also done an outstanding job in helping us to get the Senate bill to the floor, and for this we thank him.

I also would like to thank my colleagues Congressman Michael Burgess and Congressman John Culberson for the outstanding job that the two of them jointly performed in getting the necessary signatures to get this bill to the floor.

That would be the bill in the House, not the Senate bill. But I want to thank them for what they did because it took getting the House bill through to get us to the point where we can now get the Senate bill passed, such that we can accord the Gold Medal.

I would like to thank the entire Texas delegation. They have all thought highly of Dr. DeBakey, and they have worked with us to make sure that we were in a position to get this done.

We want to thank the 313 cosponsors of this legislation. Literally, we have gone to the floor of the House and we have talked to persons who agreed that the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey should be accorded this preeminent privilege and this great honor.

I want to thank the House leadership because the leadership made it possible for the fellowship to be in this position today. And again, we thank Senator Hutchison and all of the Members of the Senate who have helped us with this process.

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Gold Medal has 535 judges, 100 in the Senate, 435 in the House, because each Member of the House and each Member of the Senate has a vote on the Congressional Gold Medal. And I am honored to say that, while we must receive 290 votes in the House and 67 votes in the Senate, we have exceeded the required numbers in both the House and the Senate. People were excited about the opportunity to accord the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey a Congressional Gold Medal.

What is a Congressional Gold Medal? It is the Nation's highest and most distinguished civilian award. It was originally awarded to military leaders for their service and later became a civilian medal. It is the congressional equivalent of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Each medal is unique. It is designed by the U.S. Mint and is duplicated in bronze for sale.

The Congressional Gold Medal has been awarded approximately 134 times to approximately 300 individuals. Some notable recipients include our first President, George Washington; General Andrew Jackson; the Wright brothers; Thomas Edison; Sam Rayburn, former Speaker of this august body; Sir Winston Churchill; Robert Kennedy; Lady Bird Johnson; Mother Teresa of India; Nelson Mandela; Rosa Parks; Pope John Paul, II; the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King; and the last recipients were the Tuskegee Airmen. I was honored to be present in the rotunda when they received their Congressional Gold Medal in April of 2006.

Mr. Speaker, I think that Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the oldest of five children, born of parents of Lebanese descent, has truly been an outstanding American. He was born in Louisiana in Lake Charles, performed his residency at Charity Hospital. Mr. Speaker, I am from Louisiana. I was born in New Orleans. I was born in Charity Hospital. And while it may be a bit of wishful thinking, there may be the possibility, or the possibility may exist, that I am a DeBakey baby and that he was performing his residency at Charity Hospital at the time that I was born.

Mr. Speaker, he was on the faculty of the Baylor College of Medicine from 1948 to 1993, where he chaired the Department of Surgery. He served as President and Chancellor of the Baylor College of Medicine.

And Mr. Speaker, I say from the bottom of my heart that I thank God for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey. He has earned the right to receive a Congressional Gold Medal. He served his country in World War II, and he volunteered to perform this service. He helped to develop, while in the military, the mobile army surgical hospital, we know it as the ``MASH'' units. And Mr. Speaker, there is a TV program and a movie that was made popular because of the MASH units that were developed because of the Honorable Michael E. DeBakey. In fact, it may be said that, but for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, there might not be a MASH television series.

He helped to establish the VA Hospitals. He helped to establish the current Veterans Affairs medical system. He was one of the first to successfully perform a coronary bypass. He established the field of surgery for strokes. He led the movement to establish the National Library of Medicine. He performed the historic transplantation procedure, with a team of surgeons of course. He was the first person to successfully use a partial artificial heart to help patients who could not be weaned from the heart-lung machine following heart surgery.

He pioneered the field of telemedicine, with the first demonstration of open heart surgery transmitted overseas via satellite. He invented the Dacron tube, using his wife's sewing machine and fabric he purchased from a store in Houston, Texas. This, Mr. Speaker, was the first artificial artery.

He was a leader in the development of the artificial heart. He operated on more than 60,000 patients in Houston. He has published over 1,600 articles. He helped to establish health care systems around the world in Jordan, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, to name a few countries.

He became one of the persons to work at the Baylor School of Medicine, to the extent that Baylor has recognized his unprecedented achievements by naming the DeBakey Heart Center in his honor. And also, the Baylor College of Medicine has named the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery in his honor.

Dr. DeBakey is a great citizen, Mr. Speaker, not only of the United States but also of the world. He is a great humanitarian; he has helped rich and poor alike. If we did not have the Congressional Gold Medal, Mr. Speaker, we would have to create one for the Honorable Dr. Michael E. DeBakey.

On his 99th birthday, we called him to let him know that we had completed the process in the House in terms of passing the House bill so that we can move forward to this bill, and his comment was, ``I am so grateful that I am a citizen of the United States.'' Mr. Speaker, I believe that his life stands for the proposition that one person can not only impact the world, but can change the world for the good of all.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, Congressman Burgess, for it was he who called this piece of legislation to my attention. And he has been steadfastly with me throughout the process, and I am honored to have worked on this piece of legislation with him and Congressman Culberson.

I also think that we would be remiss, Mr. Speaker, if we did not mention Mrs. DeBakey and the persons who are caring for him currently. We have had conversations with the persons caring for him. They have indicated that, of course, he was doing well when last we spoke to them, and they do an outstanding job of caring for Dr. DeBakey.

Earlier, I mentioned that he has had the Methodist Hospital DeBakey Heart Center named in his honor, and I may have misspoken and said Baylor, but it is Methodist.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, this piece of legislation has received bipartisan as well as bicameral support. I had the honor of meeting with Senator Hutchison, and we talked about continuing the effort together to move this piece of legislation as quickly as possible through the process so that the President can sign it and get the actual award ceremony to take place. The President will now have 10 days to sign this bill. History will show us that at no time has a President refused to sign a Congressional Gold Medal. So my suspicion is that this President, who is from the State of Texas, will move expeditiously to sign the bill. After the bill has been signed, the U.S. Mint will meet with the sponsors and with interested parties, which may include family members, to discuss possible designs for the medal.

The Mint engravers will then prepare a series of sketches and possible designs for consideration. These designs will be commented on by the Commission of Fine Arts, and subsequently the Secretary of the Treasury will make the final decision as to the medal's design. The medal is created by the Philadelphia Mint. The medal will be in bronze. The gold medal, of course, will be the one presented to Dr. DeBakey, but there will be replicas in bronze to offset the cost of the medal, and arrangements will be made for the presentation of the gold medal, a ceremony to honor the Honorable Michael E. DeBakey.

Mr. Speaker, this has been one of the great pleasures of my life in terms of being in Congress, in fact, one of the great pleasures of my life period. But this is a high point in my congressional career. I am so honored that my friends have worked with me on this process and that Senator Hutchison has been there throughout the entirety of the process. We are committed to making this happen as expeditiously as possible. If Dr. DeBakey were here today, I am confident that he would continue to talk about how great it is to be a part of this great country that we know as the United States of America.

So I close by saying, God bless you, Dr. DeBakey, and thank you for what you have done to make life better for all of us, and God bless America.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas, one of the original cosponsors of this bill, Mr. Culberson.

Mr. Speaker, I am now pleased to yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I do want to thank my friends who have come to the floor to help us today honor Dr. Michael DeBakey. I do want to thank Al Green for his persistence in getting this bill to the floor. It has been a long time in the making. And obviously I want to thank our senior Senator from Texas, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and certainly thank Chairman Frank for allowing the Senate bill to come through the floor procedure so that we may hasten this floor process for Dr. DeBakey. As has been mentioned here several times this morning, Dr. DeBakey is 99 years old and certainly deserving of this honor, and we need to get it to him with all haste.

Dr. DeBakey is the father of cardiovascular surgery in our country. And I do encourage my colleagues to vote in favor of S. 474, a bill to designate the Congressional Gold Medal for the famed Houston heart surgeon.

This bill has been very important to me, as one of the physicians in the House of Representatives, to be able today to come to the floor and talk about how Dr. DeBakey changed the face of medicine so significantly forever in this country. As a fellow physician, Dr. DeBakey's work on medical advancements is legendary. His dedication to healing those around him came not only from his talents as a physician but his ongoing commitment to the larger medical community. His motto, as we heard others mention it today, was ``strive for nothing less than excellence.'' Boy, every Member of this House could adopt that as one of our mottos and do better by the country for it.

Mr. Speaker, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the education and entrepreneurial spirit that made him worthy of the Nation's highest expression of appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions. Dr. DeBakey received his bachelor's and M.D. degree from Tulane University in New Orleans, as we have already heard mentioned. He delivered Al Green in medical school.

But probably more importantly, while in medical school, he developed the roller pump, later to become the major component in the heart-lung machine that is used in open heart surgery routinely today. This was a groundbreaking achievement, Mr. Speaker. Every pump to pump the heart, to take over the work of the heart artificially, prior to that time, had worked on a mechanical piston-type arrangement. Dr. DeBakey envisioned the roller pump which preserved the structure of red blood cells as they took their course through the pump and allowed this pump to, in fact, become part and parcel with something that we now just all accept as part of cardiovascular surgery. It was truly a visionary change. Again, he popularized that while he was in medical school in the 1930s.

Now, Dr. DeBakey completed his internship at Charity Hospital, one of the venerable institutions of learning in this country. Many of my professors at Parkman Hospital trained at Charity Hospital. Charity Hospital is no longer with us because of the ravages of Hurricane Katrina 2 years ago. After Dr. DeBakey completed his internship at Charity, he went on to the University of Strasbourg in France and the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

He volunteered for service in World War II and was subsequently named director of the surgical consultants division of the U.S. Surgeon General's Office. His work during that war led to the development of what we have already heard described today as the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the so-called MASH unit. Mr. Green has already eloquently pointed out that we wouldn't have the MASH units today. More importantly, we wouldn't have those forward surgical teams that go into the combat areas and provide vital care to our soldiers in that first golden hour after injury, all of that pioneered by Dr. DeBakey well over two generations ago.

He helped establish the specialized medical and surgical center system for treating military personnel returning home from war, which we now know as the Veterans Administration Medical Center. But it was at Methodist Hospital in Houston where Dr. DeBakey performed many of his groundbreaking surgeries, including the first removal of a carotid artery blockage in 1950, interestingly the year that I was born, the first coronary artery bypass graft in 1964, the first use of a ventricle assist device to pump blood and support a diseased heart in 1966; and then on to some of the first heart transplants in this country in 1968 and 1969.

He developed a self-contained miniaturized left ventricular assist device to pump blood for a diseased heart, something that is in use to this day. The techniques used to miniaturize the device's inner workings were developed by engineers working on the Nation's space program at nearby NASA.

He has served as adviser to every President of the United States for the last 50 years. Think of that, Mr. Speaker: every President for the last 50 years has depended upon Dr. Michael DeBakey for medical advice. He has given advice to heads of state throughout the world and traveled famously to Russia in 1996 to consult on heart surgery for the ailing Boris Yeltsin. I have

to believe, Mr. Speaker, that he did a lot more than consult in that operating room that day 10 years ago.

During his professional surgical career, he performed more than 60,000 cardiovascular procedures and trained thousands of surgeons who practice around the world. Today, his name is affixed to any number of organizations, centers for learning and projects devoted to medical education and health education for the general public.

But think of this, Mr. Speaker: Dr. DeBakey also underwent an operation that was named for him. I picked up a copy of the New York Times last December and read a story about how Dr. DeBakey had undergone the surgery that he himself had described many years before. In fact, Dr. DeBakey admitted that at the time, although he knew he was ill, he never called his own doctor, he never called 911.

``If it becomes intense enough you are perfectly willing to accept cardiac arrest as a possible way of getting rid of the pain.'' This is what he told the New York Times last year. What a unique, what a pragmatic individual.

He helped establish the National Library of Medicine which is now the world's largest and most prestigious repository of medical archives. The National Library of Medicine is something I look at several times a week as I prepare for committee hearings on our Committee on Energy and Commerce, developed and established by Dr. Michael DeBakey.

Mr. Speaker, as we talk in this Congress about the need for improving computer technology for medical records and medical information, Dr. DeBakey was on the forefront of that while most of us were still in grammar school. In 1969 he received the highest honor a United States citizen can receive, the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In 1976, his students founded the Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society. His contributions to medicine and his breakthrough surgeries and innovative devices have completely transformed our view of the human body and our view of longevity on this planet. He has been designated as a living legend by the United States Library of Congress; and, today, we take another step in honoring him with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Mr. Speaker, it has been a high honor for me to be associated with this endeavor. And I certainly do thank Mr. Green and thank him for allowing me to be on the telephone when we gave the news to Dr. DeBakey several weeks ago on his 99th birthday. It is imperative that we get this legislation accomplished quickly. I appreciate Mr. Green's willingness to work with the other body in getting this legislation to the floor so swiftly.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I want to come to the floor of the House today to talk and honor the legacy that is that of Dr. Michael DeBakey, the father of cardiovascular surgery, and to encourage my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of H.R. 1154, the bill to designate a Congressional Gold Medal for the famed Houston heart surgeon.

This bill was introduced by my good friend from Texas, Representative Al Green. And Mr. Speaker, we've heard in great detail the number of accomplishments of this singular individual. But, Mr. Speaker, I felt it was incumbent upon me, as one of the very few physicians in the House of Representatives, to come to the floor and talk just a little bit about how Dr. DeBakey forever changed the face of the practice of medicine in this country.

As a fellow physician, Dr. DeBakey's work and medical advancements are indeed legendary. His dedication to healing those around him came not only from his talent as a physician, but his ongoing commitment to medical education, the larger medical community, and indeed, the entire profession, the practice of medicine.

His motto, as always, was ``Strive for nothing less than excellence.'' This motto should be adopted by every one of us in this House and indeed across the country.

His education and his entrepreneurial spirit made him worthy of the Nation's highest expression of appreciation for distinguished achievements and contributions.

Dr. DeBakey received his bachelor's and M.D. degree from Tulane University down in New Orleans. While in medical school, Dr. DeBakey invented what became known as the roller pump, later to become a major component in the heart-lung machine used in open heart surgery. Think of that, Mr. Speaker. He was in medical school. He was not yet an M.D. and he devised a revolutionary concept for the engineering of a pump that dealt with a roller mechanism, as opposed to the piston mechanism that resulted in the destruction of red blood cells by the very mechanism that was intended to pump those red blood cells. He had an unusual knack for looking at things in a new light and developing new ideas.

He completed his internship at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. Charity Hospital. Think of that, Mr. Speaker. One of the venerable institutions of medical education in this country; an institution that was unfortunately lost to us just two short years ago to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. Charity Hospital has turned out a number of medical icons of my generation and the generation before, now lost to us forever.

But it was Dr. DeBakey at his residency in surgery or doing his internship at Charity Hospital to then go on to his residency in surgery at the University of Strasbourg, France and the University of Heidelberg in Germany.

He volunteered for service in World War II and was subsequently named director of the surgical consultants division of the United States Surgeon General's Office. His work during that war led that office to the development of the mobile army surgical hospital, which we now know as a MASH unit. These units were the forerunners of our forward surgical combat teams that have saved so many lives in the present conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Previous conflicts in Korea and Vietnam certainly benefited from the mobile army surgical hospitals, but those forward surgical teams, to be able to deliver the type of care in the battlefield that those critically injured patients need, many of us have traveled to Iraq and seen those hospitals at Ballad and Imbue Sinai in Baghdad, the Baghdad ER. And it's the principles put forward by Dr. DeBakey that are at work at this hour in those centers where our men and women are fighting today.

He helped establish the specialized medical and surgical center system for treating military personnel returning home from war, subsequently known as the Veterans Administration medical center system.

But it was at Methodist Hospital in Houston in the Texas Medical Center represented so capably by my friends from Texas Mr. Culberson and Mr. Green where Dr. DeBakey performed many of his groundbreaking surgeries, including the first removal of a carotid artery blockage. Mr. Speaker, the year was 1950. That's the year I was born. The first coronary artery bypass graft in 1964, the first use of a ventricular assist device to pump blood and to support a failing heart in 1966, and then some of the first heart transplants performed in this country in 1968 and '69.

He developed a self-contained miniaturized left ventricular assist device pump, again, to assist the diseased left ventricle and allow it an opportunity to either heal, get the patient to surgery, or perhaps provide stabilization leading up to a transplant. This is something that is in use today, and indeed I saw it used on one of my family members a number of years ago.

The techniques used to miniaturize the device's inner workings were developed with engineers working with engineers right next door at the nearby NASA program.

He served as an advisor to nearly every United States President for the last 50 years. He traveled, in 1966 very famously to Russia to consult on the surgery for Russian President Boris Yeltsin. And knowing Dr. DeBakey, I have to suspect he did a good deal more than consult on that surgery.

During his professional surgical career, he performed more than 60,000 cardiovascular procedures, trained thousands of surgeons who practice around the world. His name is affixed to a number of organizations, centers for learning, and projects devoted to medical education and health education for the general public.

But think of this, Mr. Speaker. Dr. DeBakey also underwent an operation that was named for him. Reading in the New York Times on the way up here to Washington last December, I read a story about how Dr. DeBakey had undergone the surgery that he himself had described many years before. In fact, Dr. DeBakey admitted at the time, although he knew he was quite ill, he never called his own doctor and he never called 911.

Now, I'm quoting here. He said, ``if it becomes intense enough, you're perfectly willing to accept cardiac arrest as a possible way of getting rid of the pain.'' That's what he told the New York Times. You just have to marvel at the pragmatism of that individual.

As previously noted by the other two speakers, he did help establish the National Library of Medicine, which is now the world's largest and most prestigious repository for medical archives. Indeed, I will probably use the medline in the National Library of Medicine this evening as I prepare for hearings on the Energy and Commerce Committee tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, as we talk in Congress about the need for improving the practice of medicine, Dr. DeBakey was on the forefront of that, while most of us in this body hadn't even started school yet. In fact, many in this body were not even born yet.

These accomplishments have been honored before. In 1969, he received the highest honor a United States citizen can receive, the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction. In 1976, his students founded the Michael E. DeBakey International Surgical Society.

His contributions to medicine and his breakthrough surgeries and innovative devices have completely transformed our view of the human body and of our longevity and, indeed, of the planet.

He has been designated a living legend by the Library of Congress, and today we take another opportunity to honor a full and important life by conferring on Dr. DeBakey the Congressional Gold Medal.

I want to thank my colleagues who joined me in cosponsoring H.R. 1154, introduced by Congressman Green and cosponsored by Congressman Culberson.

Mr. Speaker, imagine a simple country doctor from Louisville, Texas. I got to sit on the phone last Friday with Al Green and sing Happy Birthday to Dr. DeBakey on his 99th birthday. What an honor for me, what an honor for America to be able to afford this individual the rightful accolades that he so richly deserves.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1154) to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on this bill, H.R. 1154.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be the original sponsor of this bill. However, Mr. Speaker, I would like to make it conspicuously clear that to award this Congressional Gold Medal to the Honorable Michael DeBakey, many other persons are to be thanked.

I would like to start by thanking the chairman of the Financial Services Committee, my chairman, Chairman Barney Frank, for helping us to expeditiously get this bill out of committee. I would also like to thank the majority leader, Steny Hoyer, for the outstanding work that he has done to get this bill to the floor; my colleagues, Congressman Michael Burgess and the Congressman who is with

me right now, Congressman Burgess is en route, Congressman John Culberson. They have both worked with me, Mr. Speaker, to help us acquire the necessary votes, 290, and I assure you we have acquired more than 300 votes, to get this bill to the floor. The Texas delegation has worked with us and deserves an expression of appreciation. The 313 cosponsors in the U.S. House, the leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives, and of course we would like to thank Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, and the Members of the Senate for what they have done with this legislation.

Mr. Speaker, the Congressional Gold Medal has many judges. In fact, 535 people act as judges with reference to the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal. Each Member of the House, 435, and each Senator has a vote. Each one judges the merits of a candidate for a Congressional Gold Medal.

I want you and all others to know, Mr. Speaker, and I understand this and I guess I want people to understand that I understand, that it is not easy to get 290 Members of the House and 67 Members of the Senate to agree. However, with Dr. Michael DeBakey, I found that it was a labor of love, and I found all of the Members that we approached to be most receptive to having this medal be accorded the Honorable Dr. Michael DeBakey.

Let me at this time explain what a Congressional Gold Medal is. It is the Nation's highest and most distinguished civilian award. It was originally awarded to military leaders and later became a civilian medal. It is the congressional equivalent of the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Each medal is unique, and it will be coined by the United States Mint and designed by the United States Mint. There will be duplicates made in bronze, and they will be available for public consumption.

The Congressional Gold Medal has been awarded approximately 134 times to approximately 300 individuals. Some noted recipients include the first President of our Nation, George Washington; General Andrew Jackson; the Wright Brothers; Thomas Edison; Sam Rayburn, a former Speaker of this august body; sir Winston Churchill; Robert Kennedy; Lady Bird Johnson; Mother Teresa; Nelson Mandela; Rosa Parks; Pope John Paul II; the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King; and Coretta Scott King. And the last recipients were the Tuskegee Airmen.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank God for Dr. Michael DeBakey. He is truly one who epitomizes the American Dream. Born the oldest of five children, his parents were of Lebanese descent. He was born in my home State, New Orleans, Louisiana. And, Mr. Speaker, I am proud to say that he had his residency at Charity Hospital, the hospital where I was delivered, and I am currently researching to find out if it is entirely possible that I might be a person who was delivered by the Honorable Michael DeBakey.

He received his degree from Tulane Medical School. He was on the faculty of Baylor University from 1948 to 1993. He chaired the department of surgery at Baylor. He was the president of Baylor College and also a chancellor.

Mr. Speaker, the Honorable Michael DeBakey has earned the right to receive a Congressional Gold Medal. He served his country during World War II, helped to develop the mobile army surgical hospital units known as the MASH units. We probably would not have a MASH TV series if not but for the Honorable Michael DeBakey.

He helped to develop and establish the VA hospitals. He helped to establish the current Veterans Affairs medical system. He established the field of surgery in the area of strokes. He led the movement to establish the National Library of Medicine. He performed the historic multiple transplantation procedure. He was a leader in the development of the artificial heart. He operated on more than 60,000 patients in Houston alone. He has published more than 1,600 articles. He has been awarded 57 honorary degrees. He helped to establish health care systems around the world, in Jordan, Morocco, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Spain, to name a few.

Dr. DeBakey is a great citizen not only of the United States of America but also of the world. He has been a humanitarian par excellence, and he has helped both rich and poor alike.

Mr. Speaker, if we did not have a Congressional Gold Medal, we would have to create one to honor the Honorable Dr. Michael DeBakey. On his 99th birthday, I am proud to say, we called him to let him know that we had reached the 290 signatures necessary in the House. And his comments were, ``I am so grateful that I am a citizen of the United States.''

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to just make a few closing comments, if I may.

Mr. Speaker, as was indicated by Dr. Burgess, who has worked tirelessly, I might add, to help us get the necessary signatures to bring this bill to the floor, as was indicated, Dr. DeBakey is a living legend. But he is really more than that. He is a person who is loved by many people. The people over at Baylor College of Medicine, the staff, they have worked with us to help us get this piece of legislation through the Congress.

I am honored to tell you, Mr. Speaker, that Mrs. DeBakey is a real asset as well, and we don't want to overlook her.

He is a gentle spirit, a person who is warm, a person who exudes a sense of confidence that is almost infectious. He is a person who is not only a great citizen of the United States, a great humanitarian, but a person who will be remembered throughout history for all that he has done to help humankind.

Mr. Speaker, I will close with a poem, the author whose name is not known to me, but it is most appropriate for Dr. DeBakey:

``While some measure their lives by days and years

Others by heartthrobs, passions, and tears

The surest measure under God's sun

Is what for others in your lifetime have you done.''

Dr. DeBakey, we thank you for what you have done, and we honor you today for your great place in history that you will acquire.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.