Duke Medical Center Archives Blog Category: Collection Highlights

In honor of Black History Month, our blog this week features Clydie Pugh-Myers, a graduate of the first class of Duke’s licensed practical nursing (LPN) program in 1949.

Duke’s LPN program was established in 1948 as a collaboration of Duke University Hospital, Durham City School, and the North Carolina Department of Vocational Education to train African American nurses. Although 72 women qualified and registered for the program its inaugural year, only 26 would pass the rigorous training and examinations to graduate the following year. The LPN program transferred to the Durham Industrial Education Center, which would later become Durham Technical Community College, in the early 1960s.On January 18, 2006, Jessica Roseberry conducted an oral history interview with Pugh-Myers at her… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

This week we are celebrating #ColorOurCollections with other libraries, archives, and cultural institutions around the world! This week-long social media initiative was launched by The New York Academy of Medicine Library in 2016. Participating institutions are sharing free coloring pages made using materials from their collections. 

The coloring pages from our collection can be found here. They include two drawings made by Robert Blake, a legendary medical artist at Duke. Along with his illustrations of the… MORE

Category: News, Collection Highlights

This week we are celebrating #ColorOurCollections with other libraries, archives, and cultural institutions around the world! This week-long social media initiative was launched by The New York Academy of Medicine Library in 2016. Participating institutions are sharing free coloring pages made using materials from their collections. 

The coloring pages from our collection can be found here. They include two drawings made by Robert Blake, a legendary medical artist at Duke. Along with his illustrations of the… MORE

Category: News, Collection Highlights

The first Harry Potter book was published 20 years ago today and sparked an international phenomenon. As we remember this beloved literary and film series, we’d like to draw your attention to a slightly smaller production from 15 years ago: Larry Potter and the Golden Gallstone. This one-night-only event took place on March 15, 2002 and starred physicians and medical students.

The Student-Faculty Show has been a Duke tradition since 1940 when, during the school’s tenth anniversary, the senior class expressed the wish to commemorate the event by putting on a play. This play, called From OPC to CPC, was a farcical spoof about medical skills and medical school. The cast of characters included notable Duke instructors portrayed by their students. We believe that the plays were… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

In honor of Black History Month, our blog this week features Dr. Jean Spaulding, the first African American woman to graduate from Duke’s School of Medicine in 1972. 

Although born in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Spaulding grew up in Highland Park, Michigan, just outside of Detroit. She moved back to the South in order to attend Duke University’s School of Medicine. When she received her MD in 1972, she became the first African American woman to graduate from Duke University’s School of Medicine. Dr. Spaulding stayed at Duke to complete her fellowship and residency in psychiatry. In 1977, she opened a private psychiatry practice in Durham, North Carolina. She also worked as a clinical consultant in child psychiatry at Duke from 1977 to 1990. Among other professional roles she has… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

The Duke Community was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. H. Keith H. Brodie earlier this month. As both chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and president of Duke, he had a profound impact on Duke University and Duke Health.

There have been several well-written tributes to Dr. Brodie and his legacy in the past couple of weeks, so rather than attempt to write another, we thought that we would share some of his own words. We conducted an oral history interview with Dr. Brodie in 2004 that hopefully provides a glimpse of the type of leader that he was.

When asked about his continued dedication to psychiatry, Dr. Brodie shared the following:

“It’s been fun. You know, I’ve always felt that if we could interest undergraduates in what psychiatry is all about… MORE

Category: News, Collection Highlights

The Duke Community was saddened to learn of the passing of Dr. H. Keith H. Brodie earlier this month. As both chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and president of Duke, he had a profound impact on Duke University and Duke Health.

There have been several well-written tributes to Dr. Brodie and his legacy in the past couple of weeks, so rather than attempt to write another, we thought that we would share some of his own words. We conducted an oral history interview with Dr. Brodie in 2004 that hopefully provides a glimpse of the type of leader that he was.

When asked about his continued dedication to psychiatry, Dr. Brodie shared the following:

“It’s been fun. You know, I’ve always felt that if we could interest undergraduates in what psychiatry is all about… MORE

Category: News, Collection Highlights

When looking for items for our recent Halloween event, we made an interesting and unexpected find that we wanted to share. In a folder titled “The Effect of Radiation on the World's Most Precious Material” in the Charles W. Shilling Papers, we not only found Dr. Shilling’s speech notes with

the aforementioned title, but also an informational pamphlet about Professor Heckler’s Trained Flea Circus at Hubert’s Museum in New York City, shown on the left. We are not exactly sure why Dr. Shilling had this brochure in his papers. Did… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

Next Monday is our annual Halloween event and we are so excited about sharing all the spooky (and silly) things that we have in our collections. In anticipation of next week’s event, we are highlighting one group of materials that will be on display at the event—fallout shelter plans and pamphlets. 

One thing that scared many Americas during the 1960s was the prospect of nuclear war. Consequently, many plans were made across the country for the building or preparation of fallout shelters. These were sites “intended to give some protection against fallout radiation and other effects of a nuclear explosion, either an existing area such as a basement or tunnel, or a structure specially constructed for this purpose” (Dictionary of Energy, p. 218). In the… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

October is a month of cooler temperatures, changing leaves, and Halloween candy, but also Archives Month! This annual celebration promotes archives, the materials they preserve, and people who work in them. All month events have been held across the country to celebrate. For example, on October 5th, archivists responded to questions on Twitter with the hashtag #AskAnArchivist. Upcoming on October 26th & 27th, the National Archives will host a live, two-day, virtual Genealogy Fair via webcast on Youtube. And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of events!

On a state level, the Society of North Carolina Archivists sponsors Archives Month events every year. In fact, Gov. McCrory officially declared October to be “Archives Month”… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights, News

October is a month of cooler temperatures, changing leaves, and Halloween candy, but also Archives Month! This annual celebration promotes archives, the materials they preserve, and people who work in them. All month events have been held across the country to celebrate. For example, on October 5th, archivists responded to questions on Twitter with the hashtag #AskAnArchivist. Upcoming on October 26th & 27th, the National Archives will host a live, two-day, virtual Genealogy Fair via webcast on Youtube. And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of events!

On a state level, the Society of North Carolina Archivists sponsors Archives Month events every year. In fact, Gov. McCrory officially declared October to be “Archives Month”… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights, News

Just in time for spring’s colorful blossoms, the Duke Medical Center Archives acquired three vibrant watercolors of Duke Medicine buildings from the Facilities, Planning, Design/Construction department. The paintings were added to the Facilities Planning and Development Collection. The watercolors depict the Medical Center (2003), the Duke Cancer Center (2009), and Duke Medicine Circle (2009). The Medical Center and Duke Medicine Circle include campus views, while the Duke Cancer Center painting shows the front of the building with flowers in full bloom. Click to enlarge the image.

The artwork, ranging in size from 22.5” x 14”… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

If you think the Medical Center is easy to get lost in now, consider what it may have been like decades ago, before standardized signage was created. 45 years ago this month, March 1971, Duke University Medical Center introduced its first major signage system, SEDO.

During the 1960s, the Medical Center experienced unprecedented growth. New development meant more buildings, more employees, and more patients. As it expanded, the need for a way to easily navigate the growing complex became increasingly important. To address this issue, Duke hired a graphic designer to produce and oversee the implementation of a new wayfinding system. 

The result was SEDO, or “System for Environmental Direction and Orientation.” This new approach divided the Medical Center into eight major,… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

In honor of Black History Month, in this blog post we’re featuring Prentiss Harrison, who, upon graduating from Duke’s program in 1968, was the first African American PA in the nation.

Harrison first heard of Duke’s fledging PA program while working as an operating room technician at the UNC Chapel Hill Hospital. Established in 1965, Duke’s program was a two-year course intended to train students to practice medicine and provide health care services under a doctor’s supervision, and was the first of its kind in the nation. Harrison, who had been trained as a medical corspman while serving in the Army, recognized that this new field could offer professional opportunity and advancement. He applied and was accepted into the second class.

The Medical Center Archives has… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

We have several scrapbooks of programs and individuals associated with the Medical Center in our collections at the Archives, but a particular favorite and one we want to highlight in this post is those of Mildred Sherwood.

Sherwood (pictured right, in the center of the top photo) dedicated her professional life to Duke, having been recruited by the first School of Medicine Dean Wilburt C. Davison (like many of her colleagues, from a position at Johns Hopkins Hospital) to be pediatrics supervisor at Duke University Hospital when it opened in 1930. She also was an instructor in the Department of Pediatrics, teaching medical and nursing students about patient care. She… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights