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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Arnall Patz M. D.
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Dr. Arnall Patz M.D.
Dr. Arnall Patz "is one of the greatest ophthalmologists of the 20th century without doubt," a colleague says.
11distinguished individuals to receive Medal of Freedom at the White House
Arnall Patz M.D.
President George W. Bush will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor on Wednesday June 23, 2004, to Mormon Church President Gordon B. Hinckley, actress Doris Day, golfer Arnold Palmer, politician Edward Brooke, historian Vartan Gregorian, National Geographic Society Chairman Gilbert Grosvenor, cosmetics mogul Estee Lauder, actress Rita Moreno, ophthalmology researcher Arnall Patz, journalist Norman Podhoretz and economist and banker Walter Wriston the White House announced Friday.
They will join Pope John Paul II and journalist Robert Bartley as 2004 recipients.
President Truman established the award in 1945 to honor civilian contributions during World War II. It was reinstated by President Kennedy in 1963 to recognize distinguished peacetime service. The medal has been conferred on roughly 400 individuals since its introduction.
Bush will present the medals at a White House ceremony on Wednesday, although the president delivered the award to the pope during a visit to the Vatican earlier this month.
Honorees are recommended to the president by a Distinguished Civilian Service Awards Board. Past recipients include former presidents, astronauts, entertainers, scientists, religious leaders and victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
A man of great vision to receive presidential honor
Hunch: Dr. Arnall Patz saw connection between high oxygen and babies' blindness.
By Jonathan Bor
Sun Staff
Originally published June 23, 2004
As a young doctor training in Washington after World War II, Arnall Patz witnessed a revolution. A new kind of incubator, sealed on all sides to contain an inner climate, was enabling doctors to save premature babies at rates never before seen.
But something was wrong. Patz noticed that the advance coincided with an epidemic of infant blindness, and that most of the victims were "preemies" who lay for weeks in an atmosphere of near-total oxygen.
In a question that outraged physicians at the time but later won their admiration, Patz wondered whether there might be a connection. Was it possible that oxygen was robbing babies of their sight?
Because he asked and answered that question -- and went on to become one of the giants of modern ophthalmology -- Patz is due to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom at a White House ceremony tonight. The award is billed as the nation's highest civilian honor.
"He'll probably tell you that getting this award is a case of mistaken identity," said Dr. Morton F. Goldberg, who succeeded Patz as director of the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute in 1989.
Patz received the news three weeks ago. "I was overwhelmed," said the famously modest doctor, who at 84 still works 10-hour days at Wilmer. "I said, 'By golly, this must be mistaken identity.'"
Patz, who led the Hopkins institute for a decade, is in an eclectic lineup of 13 honorees including Pope John Paul II, who received his award at the Vatican. It includes Edward W. Brooke, the first African-American elected to the U.S. Senate; Doris Day, the popular actress and singer; Norman Podhoretz, longtime editor of Commentary Magazine; and the late Estee Lauder, the cosmetics mogul.
Patz, who enjoys golf but makes no claims to greatness, said he can't believe his good fortune in sharing the stage with another honoree, Arnold Palmer. "To just be sitting next to him ..." the doctor said in a recent interview.
Patz's list of accomplishments is long, but perhaps foremost was the discovery that helped stop the epidemic of infant blindness. He is also widely known for collaborating with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on one of the first argon lasers used in the treatment of diabetic eye disease and other retinal disorders.
At Hopkins, colleagues praise him for establishing one of the world's leading centers focusing on vascular disorders of the retina, and for acting as mentor to scores of today's leading eye specialists.
"He is one of the greatest ophthalmologists of the 20th century, without doubt," said Goldberg. "He revolutionized the field more than once."
The son of shopkeepers in rural Georgia, Patz received his medical degree at Emory University, served at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and trained at D.C. General Hospital. It was there, around 1950, that Patz noticed the strange association between incubators and the disease known as retinopathy of prematurity -- by then the leading cause of infant blindness.
"It had become standard practice to put babies in incubators and crank up the oxygen," Patz said. He could hardly blame the doctors who did this because it turned struggling babies from blue to pink.
But Patz sought funding for what became one of the first clinical trials not just in ophthalmology but in all of medicine. His idea was to follow "preemies" given high oxygen and others experimentally given lower doses.
Rebuffed by a funding agency, which thought the proposal unscientific and possibly dangerous, he conducted his own trial. Seven of 29 babies maintained on high oxygen developed advanced eye disease, while none of 37 babies on low oxygen did.
Patz moved to Baltimore in 1950, where he married Ellen Levy and established a private practice. For years, he commuted to Washington at night to conduct animal experiments that helped explain how oxygen destroyed eyesight.
As it turned out, oxygen caused blood vessels in the back of the eye to constrict. In a doomed attempt to compensate, the eye sprouted twisted vessels that would eventually bleed and destroy the retina.
In 1956, Patz shared the prestigious Albert Lasker Medical Research Award with V. Everett Kinsey, a biochemist who organized a larger study that confirmed Patz's findings. Handing them their trophies was Helen Keller, the deaf and blind woman who became one of Patz's inspirations. "Helen Keller's eyes were so sparkly," he said, studying a newspaper photo that captured the moment.
Dr. Alfred Sommer, a Hopkins-trained ophthalmologist who is dean of the university's school of public health, said Patz is a rare combination: a great scientist of generous spirit who made seminal discoveries while not on a university's full-time staff. Patz remained part time for 15 years before joining the full-time faculty in 1970.
Patz is an inveterate networker, Sommer said. "He was always working to advance other people's agendas and contributions."
The Patzes raised five children in a Pikesville house that often crawled with friends and students, some of whom would stay for weeks -- or years, said daughter Susan Patz.
In the evening, Patz and his nephew, Sam, would switch on a ham radio and communicate with Eye Bank volunteers around the country, trying to round up donated corneas.
His son, Dr. Jonathan Patz, a Hopkins expert on global warming and world health, said his father is above all a model of ethics. "He always told me, 'If you can remember anything, be impeccably honest in all your dealings,'" he said.
Arnall Patz M.D.
ARNALL PATZ, MD
(B. 1920)
“Dr. Patz is a most unusual individual, both because
of his tremendous research in many areas but also
because of his personality and kindness to people.”
--Irvin P. Pollack, MD
The brilliant career of Arnall Patz was launched when, as young resident in ophthalmology at the District of Columbia General Hospital, he suspected oxygen had a role in the alarming number of retrolental fibroplasia cases among premature infants. Undeterred by opposition, Patz conducted clinical trials that showed he was correct. His work saved the sight of an untold number of newborns and won him the prestigious Lasker Award. This early work led to his interest in diabetic retinopathy and, in the late 1960s, he pioneered the use of the argon laser to treat retinopathy. He performed one of the early controlled clinical trials and pushed for their expansion in ophthalmology. He was director of the Wilmer Ophthalmological Institute at Johns Hopkins University from 1979 to 1989 and proved himself a gifted teacher and clinician.
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Medal History
