[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 6] [House] [Page 7812] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]THEY CARED FOR US: A TRIBUTE TO OUR LOCAL DOCTORS AND DENTISTS The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Northern Mariana Islands (Mr. Sablan) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. SABLAN. Madam Speaker, in 1914, a young Chamorro by the name of Jose Diaz Torres began his training in medicine at a small hospital opened by the German colonial administration on the island of Saipan. Chamorro people had their own healing and medicinal traditions from ancient times, but Spanish colonizers introduced the indigenous people to Western medicine, and the Germans continued this practice upon taking control of the Northern Mariana Islands at the end of the 19th century. The Germans had a commitment to training local people, and Jose Torres, or Dr. Torres as he came to be called, thus became the islands' first local doctor. When Japan supplanted Germany, Dr. Torres continued his practice in a hospital the Japanese constructed. There too, the careers of Saipan's first Chamorro dentists, Dr. Manuel Manibusan Aldan and Dr. Juan Charfauros Reyes, began. Victory over the Japanese in World War II brought the United States to control of the Northern Mariana Islands. After the war, the islands were administered under a United Nations trusteeship arrangement that required the United States to improve the standard of living. This responsibility was carried out by the U.S. Department of the Navy during the 1950s. The Navy built temporary hospitals on Saipan for the treatment of both military and civilian personnel. In recognition that the local population needed access to permanent medical care, the Navy also expanded the colonial practice of training promising individuals in dentistry and medicine. The Navy sent Dr. Juan Charfauros Reyes for further education to the School of Dental Assistants, Navy Hospital, Guam. Doctors Jose Lujan Chong, Francisco Taman Palacios, Benusto Rogolifoi Kaipat, Jose Tenorio Villagomez, and Calistro Camacho Cabrera were sent for medical training first to the Naval Medical School on Guam and then to the Central Medical School at Suva, Fiji, in the early 1950s. {time} 2000 Dr. Carlos Sablan Camacho similarly trained in Fiji later in the decade and in Hawaii in the 1970s. In 1962, two important events took place in the Northern Mariana Islands. First, the U.S. Department of the Interior took over the United States' trusteeship responsibilities from the Navy, inaugurating the establishment of the Government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the capital of which was eventually located on Saipan. Second, the residents of Saipan witnessed the grand opening of a modern, civilian-staffed hospital built on As Terlaje hill, christened Dr. Torres Hospital in honor of Saipan's first local doctor. The 1960s and 1970s brought opportunities for the aforementioned local doctors to obtain advanced training in Guam and in Hawaii. Joining the ranks of the Northern Marianas' first doctors and dentists in 1972 were Dr. Manuel Quitano Sablan and Dr. Helen Taro, who earned their degree in dentistry and medicine, respectively, from the Fiji School of Medicine. Like their faithful colleagues before them, Dr. Sablan and Dr. Taro returned after their schooling to be of service to the people of the Northern Marianas, taking care of the dental and medical needs of the island community. The people of the Northern Mariana Islands have the deepest appreciation, admiration, and respect for our pioneer doctors and dentists--to those still living today and to the memory of those that have passed on. May their compassion and dedication always be an example and inspire more of our young people to pursue a career in health care. ____________________