Duke Medical Center Archive Blog

The DUMC Archives is happy to announce that we have added more historic photographs to MEDSpace. Nearly two dozen images from the 1940’s to the 1980’s have been uploaded to the digital repository. Included are portraits of key faculty and staff, images of the 65… MORE

Category: News

Last month the School of Medicine welcomed alumni back to campus for the annual Medical Alumni Weekend. This week, we look at the origins of this tradition in honor of the first medical reunion which was held on November 29th, 1940.

The Duke Medical Alumni Association was established in 1940 and organized the first reunion later that year. The second meeting, held April 24-26, 1947, was attended by 281 alumni and featured presentations on various medical topics and a business meeting. The program for this meeting is pictured on the right. Reunions were held every three years (with a hiatus for World War II) until 1959 when an alumni weekend in its current form was proposed.

The first Medical… MORE

Category: DUMC History

The DUMC Archives has a large collection of oral histories documenting the medical center’s history. In this post, we’re highlighting three that were conducted with individuals who worked with Dr. Grace Kerby. Kerby, who first came to Duke in 1940 as a research assistant in the Department of Pathology, is notable for a few “Duke firsts.” In 1950 she was the first female chief resident in the Department of Medicine, and in 1964 she became the first female full professor in the department. Additionally, from 1965 to 1971 she was the chief of the Division of Rheumatic and Genetic Disease in the Department of Medicine, the first female to become a division chief in the department.

The Archives is fortunate to have multiple documented recollections of Dr. Kerby. Her secretary, Rebecca… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

The DUMC Archives Fall/Winter 2015 newsletter is now available! To read it, visit: /dumc-newsletter. 

In this issue:

• From the Director’s Chair: Archival Treasures 
• New Hyperbaric Medicine Exhibit
• The DUMC Archives Acquires the Arts & Health at Duke Department Records
• A Plea for Posterity
• DUMC Archives at Work
• DUMC Archives Halloween Event

If you’d like to subscribe to our newsletter, email us at: dumc.archives@mc.duke.edu.

Category: News

It Came from the Archives! Halloween Highlights from the DUMC Archives

Location: Medical Center Library & Archives, Level 2, Room 212E  

Date: Friday, October 31, 11am – 1pm

The Duke University Medical Center Archives is hosting a Halloween event at the MCL&A featuring a selection of eerie, fascinating, and rarely seen materials from our collections. Brave souls are invited to gaze upon spine-chilling artwork, stare into the faces of frightening death masks, behold macabre medical artifacts and instruments, and much more! Halloween candy will be available…for those who haven’t lost their appetite.

The event is free and open to all. For more information, contact Jolie… MORE

Category: News

This week the Archives honors National PA Day (October 6) by highlighting a selection of resources available on the history of the profession and program at Duke. The Physician Assistant (PA) profession has its origins here at Duke with the pioneering efforts of Dr. Eugene A Stead, Jr. Stead first saw a problem for practicing physicians’ access to continuing medical education where many physicians, specifically in rural areas, did not have the time to seek further training due to lack of clinical support. To address this issue, Stead envisioned a physician assistant to provide clinical support to physicians. An experienced educator, Stead knew that many routine tasks performed by doctors were learned through practice and habit, and could be performed by trained assistants. He had seen… MORE

Category: Duke Firsts

The MCL&A’s new exhibit, “Under Pressure: Hyperbaric Medicine at Duke” is now on display. Featuring the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology, the exhibit charts the Center’s development, activities, and achievements since its beginnings in the early 1960s. Items on display include documents, photographs, and promotional materials spanning the Center’s history.

The Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology is the major facility in the Southeast and provides patient care treatment for medical conditions – such as carbon monoxide poisoning and decompression sickness – using 100% pure oxygen. The facility also has been a hub for innovative research, such as the record-breaking Atlantis dives… MORE

Category: News

This month Duke Medicine celebrated completing 1,000 heart transplants, a milestone relatively few medical centers in the country have achieved. In honor of this, we wanted to take a look back to where it all started: Duke's very first heart transplant. This April 1985 issue of the Intercom recounts the intense preparation and work involved in the surgery, which included a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and technicians. Click on the image to enlarge and read the first page of the article.

Category: Duke Firsts

We are excited to announce the addition of a new collection: Department of Arts & Health at Duke Records. Originally called the Cultural Services Program, Arts & Health at Duke was founded in 1978 through the efforts of Drs. James Semans and Wayne Rundles. Together they launched a program –one of the… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights

Did you know that Duke’s School of Medicine was one of the first in the nation to offer hospital administration courses? When Duke Hospital and the School of Medicine opened in 1930, hospital administration was a new, relatively small field. Yet for the first School of Medicine Dean, Wilburt Davison, it was an issue of special importance, as the process of organizing and establishing the hospital had made him well aware of the need for good hospital administrators. He also believed it was crucial to have more well-trained administrators throughout the South in order to help raise the standards of health care in the region. Inspired in part by Michael M. Davis’ 1929 publication, Hospital Administration: A Career, which stressed the importance of training for hospital… MORE

Category: DUMC History

We receive quite a few requests from patrons looking up past students and faculty. Some are researching family members; others need biographical information for an award recipient. Whatever the occasion, the Archives has a few resources to help you search!

Are you researching a notable Duke faculty or staff member? One of the first places we recommend searching for information on individuals is the Biographical Files Collection. This collection features basic information about notable individuals affiliated with Duke Medicine. Materials often include CVs, news clippings, and obituaries. The finding aid for the collection is searchable on our website and the folders are available to view in our reading room.   

… MORE

Category: Collection Spotlight

The DUMC Archives is happy to announce that we have added more historic photographs to MEDSpace. Over two dozen images from the 1940’s to the 1980’s have been uploaded to the digital repository. Included are portraits of key faculty and staff (such as the photo of Dr. Brenda Armstrong, to the right), images of the 65th General Hospital, photos of nursing students, and operating room images. The new additions can be viewed by scrolling down to the bottom of MEDSpace’s homepage and clicking the “Recent Additions” tab on the far right. While some of the people in these images have been identified, others have not. You can help us identify individuals by visiting our … MORE

Category: News

We are excited to report that today's post on the This Day in North Carolina History blog features DUMC history. Maintained by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, This Day in North Carolina History highlights people and places of the Tar Heel state, day by day. Today's entry looks back at the beginnings of Duke University Hospital, which opened for patients on July 21, 1930, 84 years ago today. Please visit the Duke University Hospital blog entry to read about the institution's auspicious first day and learn more. Thanks to the folks at… MORE

Category: News

84 years ago this month, July 1930, construction of the Davison Building was completed. Then simply known as the School of Medicine Building, the structure was built to resemble the collegiate gothic architecture found throughout Duke’s main campus, and included common features of the style such as arches, buttresses, and parapets.

Buildings on the main campus also frequently displayed shields connected to the department or discipline they housed, and the Davison Building was no different: 15 prominent medical and educational institutions are represented above the entrance. Included are some of the most influential medical schools throughout the world, such as the University of Virginia, McGill University, Royal College of Surgeons, University of Padua, and Trinity College (… MORE

Category: DUMC History

The Oral History Collection here at the Archives is one of our oldest and most interesting collections. There are over 300 interviews with key figures in the Med Center’s history that date from 1955 to as recent as 2012. This post is the first in a series we are launching to highlight major subjects and individuals featured in this collection. As July 3 marked the 72 anniversary of Duke’s 65th General Hospital Unit receiving orders to report for duty at Fort Bragg, we wanted to begin our Oral History series with Dr. Ivan Brown, who served in the unit and played an integral role in preserving its memory.

Dr. Brown began his career at Duke as a student, and after graduating with his MD in 1940, joined the 65th General Hospital Unit in 1943. Though he went on to accomplish much… MORE

Category: Collection Highlights