121 STAT. 1008
PUBLIC LAW 110–95—OCT. 16, 2007
Public Law 110–95 110th Congress An Act Oct. 16, 2007 [S. 474] 31 USC 5111 note.
To award a congressional gold medal to Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
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The Congress makes the following findings: (1) Michael Ellis DeBakey, M.D., was born on September 7, 1908, in Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Shaker and Raheeja DeBakey. (2) Dr. DeBakey, at the age of 23 and still a medical student, reported a major invention, a roller pump for blood transfusions, which later became a major component of the heart-lung machine used in the first successful open-heart operation. (3) Even though Dr. DeBakey had already achieved a national reputation as an authority on vascular disease and had a promising career as a surgeon and teacher, he volunteered for military service during World War II, joining the Surgeon General’s staff and rising to the rank of Colonel and Chief of the Surgical Consultants Division. (4) As a result of this first-hand knowledge of military service, Dr. DeBakey made numerous recommendations for the proper staged management of war wounds, which led to the development of mobile army surgical hospitals or ‘‘MASH’’ units, and earned Dr. DeBakey the Legion of Merit in 1945. (5) After the war, Dr. DeBakey proposed the systematic medical follow-up of veterans and recommended the creation of specialized medical centers in different areas of the United States to treat wounded military personnel returning from war, and from this recommendation evolved the Veterans Affairs Medical Center System and the establishment of the Commission on Veterans Medical Problems of the National Research Council. (6) In 1948, Dr. DeBakey joined the Baylor University College of Medicine, where he developed the first surgical residency program in the city of Houston, and today, guided by Dr. DeBakey’s vision, the College is one of the most respected health science centers in the Nation. (7) In 1953, Dr. DeBakey performed the first successful procedures to treat patients who suffered aneurysms leading to severe strokes, and 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.
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