June 10, 2020 - Issue: Vol. 166, No. 107 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 2nd Session

[Pages S2873-S2874]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      TRIBUTE TO DR. BRIAN MONAHAN

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, under normal circumstances, thousands of 
visitors, staff, and members file through the United States Capitol and 
Senate and House offices every day. As we slowly begin to reopen our 
economy, businesses, and other public places, all eyes on Capitol Hill 
turn to the guidance and counsel of Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending 
physician of the U.S. Congress and Supreme Court. Since 2009, when he 
joined us in the Capitol, Dr. Monahan has been a trusted voice of 
reason and an exceptional healthcare provider to me and hundreds of 
other lawmakers.
  Dr. Monahan is an accomplished physician and rear admiral of the U.S. 
Navy. He began his career as a public servant after college, when he 
joined the Navy as a member of the Health Professions Scholarship 
Program. In 1989, while working as a resident at the National Naval 
Medical Center, Dr. Monahan discovered a connection between cardiac 
arrhythmias and the antihistamine, Seldane, a discovery that lead to 
the removal of the drug from the market. Dr. Monahan has spent years 
working in the attending physician's office, as a staff physician and 
later as the assistant attending physician. Dr. Monahan has also served 
as the chairman of the Department of Medicine at the Uniformed Services 
University of Health Services and has taught at the university as a 
professor of pathology and medicine focusing on cancer, oncology, and 
hematology. Dr. Monahan's many achievements, medical expertise, and 
decades of public service make him an asset to the Capitol and an 
invaluable colleague.
  Dr. Monahan has played a particularly important role lately, as both 
the Senate and the House of Representatives work to strike a balance 
between limiting exposure to a pandemic and continuing to work for the 
American people. Dr. Monahan has provided remarkable guidance to House 
and Senate leaders on how to safely conduct business and operate in the 
Capitol. Moving forward, as we continue to deal with the COVID-19 
pandemic's economic and public health consequences, I am grateful to 
have Dr. Monahan to guide us along the way.
  Dr. Monahan is an accomplished photographer, and I have had the 
privilege of seeing many of his photographs and being with him in 
different parts of the world when he has taken some. All make one 
seeing them wish they were there. The reality but especially the 
artistry of his photographs are wonderful. Visits to his office are 
healthy and healing in so many ways.
  Dr. Monahan was recently profiled in The New York Times, and I ask 
unanimous consent that the article, ``Doctor to Congress and Supreme 
Court Toils to Sidestep Politics amid Pandemic,'' be printed in the 
Record.

[[Page S2874]]

  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, May 16, 2020]

 Doctor to Congress and Supreme Court Toils to Sidestep Politics Amid 
                                Pandemic


  Dr. Brian P. Monahan has found himself in the middle of politicized 
   debates over how quickly to reopen the country and who should be 
                          testing for Covid-19

                          (By Emily Cochrane)

       Washington.--When Senator John Barrasso, Republican of 
     Wyoming, sought guidance on how to protect his family, 
     including his 94-year-old father-in-law, when he returned 
     home from the nation's capital amid the coronavirus pandemic, 
     a doctor offered him some blunt advice.
       Don't go home just yet, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the attending 
     physician of Congress, told Mr. Barrasso, directing him to 
     quarantine for 14 days before rejoining his family. ``You're 
     a visitor,'' Dr. Monahan said.
       But when House Democratic leaders wanted counsel on whether 
     they could safely reconvene in the Capitol with Covid-19 
     still spreading--a debate with political dimensions as a 
     partisan divide was emerging across the country over how 
     quickly to reopen--Dr. Monahan was less absolute. Returning 
     to Washington carried health risks he would not recommend 
     taking, he told Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and 
     Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority 
     leader. But it was up to them to decide what to do.
       They opted to delay their return, and on Friday, partly 
     because of Dr. Monahan's warnings, moved forward with plans 
     to institute remote voting in the future.
       It was typical of Dr. Monahan, the 59-year-old Navy rear 
     admiral who is known in the halls of the Capitol as much for 
     his meticulous attention to medical detail as he is for his 
     efforts to stay completely out of politics.
       ``He is both an executive with lots of health care 
     responsibilities--particularly now--and also has the unique 
     relationship with members that a small-town doctor would have 
     with the patients he knows and sees,'' said Senator Roy 
     Blunt, Republican of Missouri and chairman of the Senate 
     Rules Committee. ``He's in a unique role at a unique time.''
       As government doctors have emerged as trusted public voices 
     and political figures in the face of a fearsome pandemic--
     appearing in White House news conferences and as witnesses at 
     marquee hearings--Dr. Monahan has maintained an uncommonly 
     low profile.
       He never issued a public statement offering his opinion on 
     whether Congress should reconvene, although he shared his 
     warnings with House leaders and privately told senior 
     Republican officials that his office did not have the 
     capacity to screen all 100 senators for the coronavirus when 
     they returned to work. When Alex M. Azar II, the health 
     secretary, said he would send 1,000 tests to Capitol Hill to 
     accommodate them, Ms. Pelosi and Senator Mitch McConnell, 
     Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, turned down 
     the offer, wary of the optics of receiving special treatment 
     at a time when testing was scarce--and prompting President 
     Trump to suggest on Twitter that ``maybe you need a new 
     Doctor over there.''
       Dr. Monahan, who declined to be interviewed, has been a 
     calm and professional voice of reason during the pandemic, 
     according to interviews with more than two dozen lawmakers, 
     Capitol officials and medical professionals who know him. 
     They say he has taken a personal interest in his influential 
     clientele, which also includes the nine Supreme Court 
     justices, even as he fields politically charged questions 
     about reopening, testing and precautionary measures.
       Operating out of a nondescript clinic tucked away in the 
     heart of the Capitol, Dr. Monahan and a small staff have been 
     exceedingly busy since the pandemic took hold, consulting 
     with lawmakers who have contracted Covid-19 or exposed to 
     someone infected with it, doling out health recommendations 
     in detailed memos ahead of votes, and producing a series of 
     videos released on an internal website to educate lawmakers 
     and their staff on how to protect themselves.
       Dr. Monahan has filmed and produced the videos by himself 
     in his office, often seated next to an elaborate bouquet of 
     white flowers and a tiny plastic model of a pangolin, the 
     scaly mammal that may have been an intermediary carrier of 
     the virus.
       In the videos, he typically walks through the most recent 
     recommendations offered by the Centers for Disease Control 
     and Prevention and demonstrates medical equipment, such as a 
     thermometer and a variety of masks (including one made by his 
     wife, using a black shopping bag and a sewing machine).
       ``He has a big job--two houses of Congress, two parties to 
     deal with--but he's not political in any way,'' Ms. Pelosi 
     said. ``He treats us all with respect, and we respect his 
     judgment in return.''
       Dr. Monahan in 2009 became the seventh man to serve as 
     attending physician, taking up a position that has always 
     been held by a Navy doctor. The House first approved a Navy 
     officer to work out of the Democratic cloakroom in 1928 after 
     one lawmaker died and two collapsed, with several hours 
     passing before a doctor could arrive in each case. Two years 
     later, the Senate extended that doctor's jurisdiction to 
     include its own members, leading to the establishment of the 
     Office of the Attending Physician.
       The office provides care to lawmakers for a fee, as well as 
     offering some services and emergency care to staff and 
     tourists. The first physician, Dr. George W. Calver, who 
     began his work just before the start of the Great Depression, 
     displayed placards in cloakrooms and elevators across the 
     Capitol with his nine ``Commandments of Health,'' including 
     ``Accept Inevitables (don't worry)'' and ``Relax 
     Completely.''
       Dr. Monahan was born in Connecticut, the son of Irish 
     immigrants who came to the United States in the 1950s. His 
     mother grew up in Kilkee, while his father grew up in a house 
     with a thatched roof without running water or electricity in 
     Lissycasey. The first in his family to attend college, he 
     worked full-time at a supermarket while commuting in a yellow 
     Volkswagen Beetle to Fairfield University, a Jesuit college--
     an education, he would tell graduates in 2011, that meant, 
     ``you are called to be `men and women for others.' ''
       He studied biology and chemistry, and after graduating, 
     joined the Navy through its Health Professions Scholarship 
     Program, enticed in part by the offer of free tuition and a 
     living allowance in exchange for a commitment to three years 
     of service.
       ``Brian was always the smartest kid in the class,'' said 
     Dr. William Dahut, a medical oncologist who spent time with 
     him in both medical school and the Navy. ``If there was a 
     publication or data, Brian knew that data and knew that 
     well.''
       In 1989, as a resident in the cardiology ward in what was 
     then the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., he 
     treated a 39-year-old woman for potentially fatal cardiac 
     arrhythmias. The patient had taken the popular antihistamine 
     Seldane, and his contribution to research on that medicine--
     and its connection to the arrhythmias--later helped lead to 
     its removal from the market.
       Dr. Monahan rose through the ranks of the Navy, becoming a 
     professor of medicine and pathology at the Uniformed Services 
     University of the Health Sciences in Maryland, as well as 
     participating in a number of national organizations related 
     to cancer, oncology and hematology.
       While serving as the Chairman of the Department of Medicine 
     at the university, he received a call for a meeting in which 
     officials with congressional leadership asked him to become 
     the attending physician on Capitol Hill when his predecessor 
     retired.
       He has since become a fixture on Capitol Hill, 
     participating in congressional trips and functions and 
     releasing health assessments for presidential and vice-
     presidential contenders, including Senators Bernie Sanders, 
     the Vermont independent, and Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. 
     (Mr. Kaine also asked him for ``a tuneup'' before hiking the 
     Virginia section of the Appalachian Trail.)
       In 2016, it was Dr. Monahan's assessment of Justice Antonin 
     Scalia's health at the time of his death--including sleep 
     apnea, coronary artery disease, obesity and diabetes--that 
     influenced the decision to decline an autopsy of the justice, 
     The Associated Press reported at the time.
       ``He was the one who advised me to go to the hospital,'' 
     said Representative Ben McAdams, Democrat of Utah and one of 
     the first lawmakers to contract the virus, said of Dr. 
     Monahan. ``He was clear: `I strongly recommend you go to the 
     hospital--this is serious.' ''
       The congressman has spoken with the doctor at least a dozen 
     times since, he said in an interview on Thursday--but had yet 
     to meet Dr. Monahan in person.
       An avid photographer, Dr. Monahan's photos are present in 
     offices around the Capitol--and he has been known to offer 
     advice on how to best capture a scenic landmark or vista on 
     trips overseas.
       He checks in with his powerful patients frequently, 
     including long after they have recovered.
       ``I've been around for a long period of time, and he just 
     takes more of a personal interest than anyone else I've ever 
     known in that position,'' said Senator James M. Inhofe, 
     Republican of Oklahoma and chairman of the Senate Armed 
     Services Committee, who has been on Capitol Hill for more 
     than three decades. ``He just seems to be genuinely 
     interested in me--and he's that way with everybody.''

                          ____________________