Nation Honors Renowned Cardiovascular Surgeon | Voice of America - English
The latest recipient of the highest civilian medal presented by the U.S. Congress is Dr. Michael DeBakey.  The pre-eminent heart surgeon, who will mark his 100th birthday in September, has operated on 60,000 patients at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and hundreds more princes, politicians, and paupers elsewhere.
Now, thisman whose Lebanese immigrant parents ran a drug store in the littleLouisiana city of Lake Charles, is the 147th Congressional Gold Medalwinner. He joins the likes of civil-rights martyr Martin Luther King,Junior; Jonas Salk, who developed the polio vaccine; and prolificinventor Thomas Edison. "After receiving this news, my pride inbeing a citizen of the United States of America is overflowing,"DeBakey said shortly after receiving the medal. "I think theindividual in this country has a better chance of self-fulfillment thananywhere else in the world, no matter what his origin may be, and nomatter what financial level he came from." As a boy, MichaelDeBakey was a voracious student, sometimes, as House Speaker NancyPelosi pointed out at the Congressional medal ceremony, inunconventional ways: "His mother taught him how to sew. She could nothave imagined then that the little hands of her little boy would becomesome of the finest surgical instruments the world had ever known." DeBakey would one day sew the Dacron tubes that he would use in 1964 to perform the world's first successful heart bypass. Halfa century earlier, young Michael -- whom his parents had challenged toread a book a week -- had complained that the local librarian would notallow him to check out one of the volumes of the EncyclopediaBrittannica. As President Bush noted at the medal ceremony, DeBakey'sfather solved the problem by buying the boy and his three siblings theentire set. "Michael read every word of every article in every volume," the president explained. AndPresident Bush said the boy also learned lessons in compassion. On oneof the family's weekly trips to the local orphanage, their car loadedwith donations of food and clothes, Michael was horrified to see thathis mother was giving away his favorite baseball cap. "His mothersimply told him, 'You have a lot of caps. Those children have none.' It's a lesson he never forgot, and Michael DeBakey has been giving tothe world ever since," President Bush said. "His legacy is holding thefragile and sacred gift of human life in his hands, and returning itunbroken." According to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, thathealing touch began in medical school in New Orleans. "When his fellowstudents were still learning the basics, Dr. DeBakey invented abreakthrough pump for blood transfusions that led to the first-everopen-heart operations," Senator Reid related. "Remember, this was1931!" As a thriving surgeon and professor, DeBakey volunteeredfor service in World War II, where the horrors of the battlefieldinspired him to design the mobile army surgical hospital -- or M.A.S.H.unit -- which has saved thousands of lives in subsequent U.S. wars. MichaelDeBakey set up health-care systems for the U.S. Veterans'Administration, supervised the first multi-organ transplant,established the field of stroke surgery, and introduced telemedicineusing satellite technology. Senator Reid says the precisenumber of lives Michael DeBakey has saved will never be known."Buteach of us who lives, and our children and grandchildren, and everygeneration thereafter, will serve as a living, eternal tribute to thelife's work of the great Dr. Michael DeBakey." One of thosetributes came from an unlikely source: the Russian Academy ofSciences. In 1996, just seven years after the fall of the Berlin Wall,it granted DeBakey honorary membership, in part because he had justsupervised quintuple bypass surgery that saved the life of RussianPresident Boris Yeltsin. And two years ago, Michael DeBakey'sprocedures saved his own life. Dr. Clifford Kitten repaired a tornartery. "I'm very proud, extremely proud, that I learned from themaster," Dr. Kitten said afterward. Then 97, DeBakey recoveredin time to attend the dedication of a Houston medical library named inhis honor. He regained his sense of humor, too. "I'm not sure Ishould have been here for this!" he chortled. But it's a goodthing, explained President Bush, that Michael DeBakey was still aroundto mend broken hearts. "Our lifetimes [in the United States] have beenextended by more than 50 percent within the course of a century, andthe man we're honoring today is part of the reason why," the presidentnoted. Michael DeBakey says one word sums up everything he'stried to achieve in his long life. Theword is excellence. Says thenonagenarian, "While I may not always have caught up with it, I wastrying always to pursue it." Pioneering cardiologist MichaelEllis DeBakey says the Congressional Gold Medal is his highest honorbecause of its emphasis on citizenship and public spirit. But he addsthat young people should not work for accolades, but for thefulfillment that comes with making a contribution to a community or acountry. Or, in Michael DeBakey's case, to the world.