Duke Medical Center Archive Blog

The Medical Center Archives is always happy to welcome researchers to view materials in our reading room, but we recognize that it is not always possible for everyone to visit our physical location! The Archives has a variety of online resources to help users learn about the collections and the Medical Center’s history. One particularly great resource that we would like to highlight is digitized issues of Intercom. 

Duke Medicine’s primary news publication from 1953 to 1986, the Intercom featured information about campus construction and events, faculty and staff news, facts and figures, and articles about medical research and innovations at Duke. The first 25 years of the publication were digitized by the… MORE

Category: News

The Medical Center Library & Archives is excited to introduce a new exhibit, Faces of Duke Health, which celebrates the diverse roles that contribute to the Duke Health community. Kicking off the series, the exhibit will spotlight Environmental Services (EVS), including our own Library EVS staff, and offer a glimpse into the history of EVS at Duke.

Category: News

Every October, the Society of North Carolina Archivists celebrates Archives Month! This year’s theme, What Puts You on the Map?, brings to mind Duke University Medical Center’s SEDO system, a wayfinding system rolled out in 1971 that left its mark on the hospital. 

On March 5, 1971, a special issue of Intercom, the hospital’s weekly bulletin, devoted three of its four pages to the implementation of the new System of Environmental Direction and Orientation, or SEDO. SEDO was a mid-century modern wayfinding system based on eight color zones and hanging lighted signs, “similar to the… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

It Came from the Archives! Halloween Highlights from the Duke Medical Center Archives

Location: Medical Center Library & Archives, Level 1

Date: Thursday, October 31, 11am – 2pm

Please join us for the Duke University Medical Center Archives’ annual Halloween event! This casual open house event will feature a selection of odd, intriguing, and significant materials from our collections. 

All are invited to drop in to view detailed medical illustrations, touch old medical instruments, explore forgotten stories from the history of Duke Health, and much more. 

Come by for a fun break to learn some history and… MORE

Category: News

This is the third blog post in a three-part series exploring the life and career of Dr. O. Michael Colvin (1936-2013), renowned oncologist and educator, who served as Director of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1995 to 2002. This blog post highlights Colvin’s dedication to his patients at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The first blog post introduces Colvin and his work.

The second blog post discusses the impact of the National Cancer Act of 1971 on the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and on Colvin’s career.

“While some may believe that humans are frail creatures who give up… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic American Heritage Month or Latinx Heritage Month. The theme of this year’s celebrations at Duke is “Our Roots, Our Future.” As custodians of institutional history, we particularly want to highlight the contributions of the Latinx community throughout the history of Duke Health. We invite you to check out some of the resources below from our Archives collections to learn more this month!

Alejandro Barbagelata Oral History Interview 
Dr.… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

This is the second blog post in a three-part series exploring the life and career of Dr. O. Michael Colvin (1936-2013), renowned oncologist and educator, who served as Director of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1995 to 2002. This blog post discusses the impact of the National Cancer Act of 1971 on the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and on Colvin’s career.

The first blog post introduces Colvin and his work.

The third blog post highlights Colvin’s dedication to his patients at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center.

While Colvin served as a physician and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University, cancer research across the nation became a national priority. Scientists in the… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

This is the first blog post in a three-part series about the life and career of Dr. O. Michael Colvin (1936-2013), a renowned oncologist and educator who served as Director of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center from 1995 to 2002. His papers, donated to the Duke University Medical Center Archives, represent his roles as a Johns Hopkins and Duke administrator, researcher, and professor. The purpose of this first blog post is to introduce Colvin to our readers. 

The second blog post discusses the impact of the National Cancer Act of 1971 on the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center and on Colvin’s career.

The… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

This is Part 4 of a multi part series on the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine & Environmental Physiology (CHMEP) and the records held documenting the CHMEP at the Medical Center Archives. In this blog post, we spotlight the filming of Brainstorm, a science fiction film, at the CHMEP. This blog post concludes on our series on the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology and it’s archival collection.

Part 1 “Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine & Environmental Physiology”, gives a brief history of the Duke CHMEP.

Part 2 “… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

Agents of Change: Portraits of Activism in the History of Duke Health is an oral history project documenting the work of activists and "change agents" throughout Duke Health’s history. This year-long project team was organized as part of the Bass Connections program and one of four teams connected to the Duke Centennial. Our team was led by Dr. Jeff Baker, Director of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and History and Rebecca Williams, Archives Librarian. Jonathan Pyka, Sara Spicer, and Lucy Zheng were the graduate team members. Gemma Holland, Ava… MORE

Category: News, Collection Spotlight

Agents of Change: Portraits of Activism in the History of Duke Health is an oral history project documenting the work of activists and "change agents" throughout Duke Health’s history. This year-long project team was organized as part of the Bass Connections program and one of four teams connected to the Duke Centennial. Our team was led by Dr. Jeff Baker, Director of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics and History and Rebecca Williams, Archives Librarian. Jonathan Pyka, Sara Spicer, and Lucy Zheng were the graduate team members. Gemma Holland, Ava… MORE

Category: News, Collection Spotlight

Duke University was established in 1924 when James B. Duke, through the Indenture of Trust, designated a gift that transformed Trinity College into a comprehensive research university. The entire university is celebrating Duke’s centennial throughout the entire year of 2024. As part of the centennial celebrations, Duke is spotlighting important individuals from the past 100 years. This is Part 2 of our series rounding up the Duke Health individuals featured. You can find Part 1 here.

J. Deryl Hart   
First Chair of the Department of Surgery and University President

His professional papers:… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

In honor of Duke’s Centennial Celebration, the Medical Center Archives is highlighting the records of the student groups it has in its holdings.

Duke Chapter of the American Medical Women's Association Records 
The American Medical Women's Association (AMWA), founded in 1915, is an organization which functions at the local, national, and international level to advocate for the advancement of women in medicine and for the improvement of women's health. Contains records pertaining to the operations of the Duke Chapter of the AMWA. Materials date from 2019 to 2020

Duke Chapter of the American Association for Men in Nursing Records … MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The Duke University Medical Center Archives is happy to announce that the North Carolina Licensed Practical Nurses Association (NCLPNA) Records are processed and open for research. The collection contains administrative records related to the day-to-day operations of the NCLPNA, such as meeting minutes, reports, correspondence, education and conference materials, publications, financial and membership records, photographs, publications, and ephemera. Major topics covered in this collection include licensed practical nursing, nursing education standards in North Carolina, African American women in medicine, North Carolina hospital systems, and healthcare advocacy.

The NCLPNA Records were donated in March 2022 by… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

In recognition of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month this May, the Medical Center Archives is highlighting our materials related to the Duke-National University of Singapore (Duke-NUS) Graduate Medical School.  This institution combines Duke’s research-focused medical curriculum with Singapore’s heavy investment in the biomedical sciences. The history of Duke-NUS reflects long-lasting collaboration between Asian, American, and Asian American  education professionals, stretching back to the 1980s.

The story of Duke-NUS begins with Duke University’s Asian and Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), an… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights