Press & Sun-Bulletin, NY
May 12 2007

Cardiac surgeon to receive high honor

By John Hill
Press & Sun-Bulletin

VESTAL — Dr. Ernest M. Barsamian has a theory about how he was
chosen to receive an Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an award that has
been given to Supreme Court Justices, Nobel Prize winners,
world-class athletes and six United States presidents.

"Probably they make mistakes sometimes, that’s all I can tell you,"
said Barsamian, who lives with his close friend Sonig Kradjian in
Vestal half of the year and in Boston the rest of the year.

Barsamian and 94 others will be given the award at a ceremony on
Ellis Island today, Barsamian’s 81st birthday. The Ellis Island
Medals of Honor are handed out each year by the National Ethnic
Coalition of Organizations to "remarkable Americans who exemplify
outstanding qualities in both their personal and professional lives,
while continuing to preserve the richness of their particular
heritage," according to the group’s Web site.

Past recipients of the award include former U.S. Secretary of State
Henry Kissinger, boxer Muhammad Ali and entertainers Siegfried and
Roy.

A cardiac surgeon and emeritus professor of surgery at Harvard
University, Barsamian was working at MIT when he built one of the
first heart-lung machines, which are used during cardiac bypass
surgery. Much of his career was spent working with Veteran’s Affairs
hospitals in New England, and during the 1960s he began the VA’s
first open-heart surgery program.

Barsamian moved to the United States from Beirut, Lebanon, in 1956.
He is of Armenian descent and was born in Syria.

Since traveling to the United States on a boat at the age of 30,
Barsamian has appreciated the fact that a person can work his way up
in this country, he said.

"You have to prove yourself," said Barsamian. "Once you do, you’re
accepted like anybody else."

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