Mr. President, October 2--9 days from today--is an important date in the life of one of the bravest people I have ever met. On October 2, 2005, Army SGT Eric Edmundson was on patrol near the…
Mr. President, October 2--9 days from today--is an important date in the life of one of the bravest people I have ever met. On October 2, 2005, Army SGT Eric Edmundson was on patrol near the Iraq-Syria border when a roadside bomb exploded beneath his armored vehicle.
He survived the blast, but went into cardiac arrest while awaiting transport to an American military hospital in Germany. Doctors worked for 30 minutes to restore his pulse. They did, but Sergeant Edmundson had already suffered severe brain damage from lack of oxygen.
Doctors told his parents that Eric would spend the rest of his life in a vegetative state and that the best thing they could do for him was choose a good nursing home. But Eric's family refused to accept that fate for him. They searched for the best rehabilitation hospital in America, somewhere where Eric could receive the very best medical care and make the fullest possible recovery.
The hospital they chose was the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago, then known by its original name: the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
I visited him there several times. His family was always there, right by his side. I will never forget the time Eric's dad told me, ``Eric has a present for you.'' I couldn't imagine what it was. Then I watched as that brave soldier stood up from his wheelchair and took several halting steps. There wasn't a dry eye in the room.
Six months after he arrived, I watched Eric Edmundson, in his Army dress uniform, walk out of that amazing hospital and into the arms of his wife and their 2-year-old daughter.
I thought of Eric Edmundson and his miraculous recovery when I learned earlier this month of the death of Dr. Joanne Smith, a medical visionary and the longtime president and CEO of Shirley Ryan AbilityLab. She died at home, with her family at her side, after battling cancer privately for 5 years. She continued to lead Shirley Ryan right up to the end.
Loretta and I offer our condolences to her husband of 33 years, Rory Repicky, their children, Claire and Michael, Joanne's 16 nieces and nephews, and her family, colleagues, and friends, who are too numerous to count.
Dr. Joanne Smith was a once-in-a-lifetime leader and a national treasure. With her brilliance, determination, and compassion, she reinvented the field of physical medicine and rehabilitation. As president and CEO of Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, she imagined--and then led the drive to create--the world's first-ever ``translational'' research hospital for rehabilitation medicine. She pioneered the concept of a cutting-edge research facility within a hospital, with scientists, innovators, technologists, and clinicians all working together to heal patients. Seeing her team work miracles with wounded veterans, injured police officers, or stroke survivors made you a believer.
Joanne Smith originally planned to be a nurse but changed her major to pre-med after working as a hospital orderly. A chance meeting during medical school with a young girl at a free health clinic in Detroit changed her life--and the future of rehabilitation medicine.
The young girl had had both legs amputated because of spina bifida, but she had learned to walk using her arms as legs and her hands as feet. She was happy. But her mother wanted her to have a more ``normal'' appearance, so doctors fitted her with a sort of harness that included two prosthetic legs and gave her a wheelchair.
Dr. Smith said it disturbed her to see how a once-happy girl became sad and less able as a result of a change in her appearance to fit society's biases and expectations. She would spend the rest of her life working to discover cures that made patients more able, not less.
She came to Shirley Ryan, then called the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, for her residency in 1988, fresh out of medical school, and thank goodness, she never left. In 2006, a few years after earning her MBA from the University of Chicago, she became president and CEO. At that point, the hospital had been ranked at the No. 1 rehabilitation hospital in America by U.S. News & World Report for nearly two decades.
If Joanne Smith had done nothing as president and CEO except more of the same, she would have been at the top of her field. But ``more of the same'' was not in her makeup. She resolved to create a new model for rehabilitation hospitals--the research institute within the hospital--so that new discoveries could reach patients in real time.
The reimagined hospital opened with a new name in 2017. Just recently, it was ranked as the best rehabilitation hospital in the Nation for the 31st year in a row, a record unmatched by any hospital.
Physical and rehabilitation medicine is a relatively new field of medicine. It began after World War II, with doctors and researchers searching for ways to help injured servicemembers regain as much of their abilities as possible.
Today, advanced rehabilitation hospitals such as Shirley Ryan AbilityLab work with children and adults with severe, complex conditions--from traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries, to amputations or serious birth defects, enabling them to live as fully and independently as possible. The demand for such medical innovations is large and growing.
The partnership at Shirley Ryan of brilliant doctors and researchers working with brave patients has resulted in some breathtaking discoveries. In 2006, doctors there outfitted a man with a prosthetic arm that he could move with his thoughts. With his thoughts. That surgery--the first of its kind in the world--has since helped revolutionize treatment for people who have lost limbs.
More recently, researchers at Shirley Ryan created the world's first manual standing wheelchair, that allows users to move while seated or standing.
Shirley Ryan serves more than 50,000 patients year from nearly every State and more than 70 countries. It is miraculous, but it is not alone. There are a handful of rehabilitation innovation centers like it in America. These are the best of the best, cutting-edge research labs within world-class hospitals that also prioritize training the next generation of doctors and healers.
My friend, Senator Cassidy of Louisiana, has seen similar miracles at TIRR Memorial Hermann, a world-class rehabilitation hospital in Houston, TX, where many people from Louisiana and around the world go for advanced treatment.
The discoveries at America's best rehabilitation innovations centers are revolutionizing medicine, and they are reaching people far beyond their own walls. But making such discoveries and propelling the field of rehabilitation medicine forward costs money--more money than these nonprofit centers can afford on their own.
That is why, today, Senator Cassidy and I are reintroducing our bipartisan proposal to recognize and support some of America's best rehabilitation innovation centers. Our bill does two things. First, it directs the Department of Health and Human Services to set criteria for such ``rehabilitation innovation centers'' and to share best practices and teachings from these institutions with health providers throughout the Nation and the world.
Second, our bill directs HHS to study whether Medicare's existing payment system is adequate to support the groundbreaking treatment, research, and medical education that is taking place at these hospitals.
When I first introduced this bill in 2013, I had a different Republican cosponsor, Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois. In 2012, Senator Kirk suffered a stroke that left him partly paralyzed and unable to walk. A year later, after months of grueling work at R.I.C., he was able to walk up the 42 steps to this Capitol Building.
In honor of the doctor whose brilliance and compassion helped transform the field of physical and rehabilitation medicine that led to the astonishing feat and so many others, Senator Cassidy and I have agreed to rename our bill the Dr. Joanne Smith Memorial Rehabilitation Innovation Centers Act.
I will close with this thought from another brave person who helped to revolutionize rehabilitation medicine. Christopher Reeve was America's Superman in the movies--until he was paralyzed from the shoulders down in an equestrian accident in 1995.
During the last decade of his life, he regained limited movement in his arms and legs. He also spent a great deal of time raising awareness of and money for the kinds of cutting-edge treatments that are pioneered at institutions such as Shirley Ryan.
In his last public appearance, he spoke at Shirley Ryan. He said, ``It gets lonely sometimes to [urge people] `Come on, let's take reasonable risks. Let's try and be safe--but let's be bold at the same time.' ''
Christopher Reeve said, ``Doctors should take the word `impossible' out of their lexicons.''
That courageous, bold optimism--be safe, but be bold at the same time--is what drove Dr. Joanne Smith and what inspires the work at America's best rehabilitation centers of innovation. Our bipartisan bill, we hope, will help advance their work.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printing in the Record.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the bill be printed in the Record.
