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VOLUME 21, NUMBER 3
JANUARY 18, 1974
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
Pre-retirement Program Established
Duke Paves the Way
For Road to Retirement
Let's say that Mary H. has been a
secretary at Duke Medical Center for 25
years. She will retire next year. Mary
thinks about her retirement years often
and needs answers to questions and help
with problems she may face in the near
future. What exactly does Mary need to
know about retirement?
Retirement today need no longer be
an unpleasant end of a career, but a
specific period In human development. It
is a period of life for accomplishment.
Retirement from paid employment is
an established part of the pattern of life
in the United States today with the
65-and-over age group accounting for
nearly 20 F>ercent of our total population.
In recognizing the difficulties of
Mary's retirement and those of other
retirees, Duke, as both an educational
institution and a leading employer, has
developed a Pre-retirement Planning
Program.
According to Ms. Lee Elmore, training
resources assistant in Employee Relations
and the Training Department, and
coordinator of the new university
Pre-retirement Program, Mary probably
isn't aware herself of what she needs to
know.
"Most people really don't think about
their retirement needs until they are
educated to the possibilities," Ms. Elmore
said.
"Many young couples plan for their
child's education years in advance," she
added, "sometimes saving for college
tuition when he is still a toddler. We
should have a similar anticipatory
attitude toward our retirement, which,
for most of us, will involve an average of
15 years."
The Pre-retirement Planning and
Counseling Program, which will be
conducted this year on a pilot basis, is
designed to prepare Duke employes for
PRACTICAL
APPROACH TO
HEALTH CARE-
The National
Institute for
Training Health
Personnel, situated
on a 10-acre site
overlooking the
mountains in
Quirigua, Guate
mala, was esta
blished with the help
of Dr. E. Croft Long,
formerly a Duke
faculty member, and
J. Edward King,
manager of the
School of Medicine's
Central Teaching
Facility. Health
technicians trained
here will be utilized
to offset Guate
mala's shortage of
medical manpower
in rural areas.
retirement and to instill a sense of
anticipation and appreciation of the
opportunities that retirement holds.
"There are problems and pitfalls in all
areas of retirement from budget needs to
what to do with increased leisure time,"
Ms. Elmore explained. "Retirement for
the average individual is going to give him
approximately 2,000 hours of additional
free time per year.
"People who have already retired have
encountered these problems, but
pre-retirees haven't. What our
Pre-retirement Program hopes to do is to
make pre-retirees aware of the
experiences of those who have already
retired and give them the benefit of some
of the best solutions others have applied
to the problems."
As a pilot project which began in
October, 30 DuRe employes who will be
retiring next summer are attending eight
two-hour lecture-discussion sessions on
subjects ranging from Duke's benefits for
retirees. Social Security, financial
planning and legal problems, to physical
and mental health, family relations,
choosing a place to live, using your leisure
tinfie and finding ways to increase your
income.
Those people participating in the
project will receive lectures from
outstanding experts, many of whom are
Duke faculty and staff members. They
also will be on hand to answer questions
and correct any misinformation the
pre-retiree may have.
Dr. George Maddox, director of the
Center for the Study of Aging and
Human Development, presided at the first
session on Oct. 24, where he sp>oke on
"The Challenge of Later Maturity."
Other guest lecturers include Dr. John
Nowlin, assistant professor of community
health sciences; Dr. Eric Pfeiffer,
(Continued on page 2)
■fe ,
SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS FOR THE RETIREE—Dewe'/ Lambert, former field
representative with Social Security, who retired after 30 years, addresses a group of
employes who are participating in the university's new Pre-retirement Planning and
Counseling Program. These employes, who will be retiring this summer, are attending
eight two-hour lecture-discussion sessions to learn about the pitfalls and opportunities
that retirement can bring. Three of the members of the group are, left to right, Alice
Wheeler, secretary in the Department of Anatomy, and housekeep>ers Nancy Parker
land Mildred Love. (Photo by Dale Moses)
Guatemalan Training School
Brightens Health Prospects
In Guatemala almost three and a half
times as many infants die before reaching
the age of one year as do infants in the
United States in proportion to the
population.
The average life span among the Indian
population in the Central American
republic is 47 years as compared to 70
years in the United States, and the
general mortality rate is almost double
that of this country.
Dysentery, skin infections and
respiratory and parasitic diseases, all but
eradicated here, are rampant in rural areas
of Guatemala.
It is ironic that almost all of the
serious health problems of a country
slightly smaller than North Carolina could
be alleviated by the most routine
preventive medicine and treatment and,
until recently, little was being done to
establish the kind of health care that
Americans take for granted.
Two Durham residents, one a field
director with the U.S. Agency for
International Development (AID) and the
other manager of the Duke University
School of Medicine's Central Teaching
Facility, are helping Guatemala take what
will in effect be a giant step toward
establishing a rural health care delivery
system for all of its people.
Dr. E. Croft Long, formerly professor
of community health sciences and
associate director of undergraduate
medical education at Duke and now with
the Rockefeller Foundation and AID, is
acting under the philosophy that the
facilities nccessary for the prevention of
diseases which constitute the major
health hazards of Guatemala are simple
and inexpensive compared with those
needed to cure the conditions once they
occur.
As a result, he is working toward the
establishment of a broad program of rural
health assistance, while at the same time
stressing the fact that such a program
must be coupled with other efforts to
break the poverty cycle which is usually
the basis for most modern day
community health problems in
developing nations.
"Guatemala's medical problems are
compounded by a maldistribution of
health personnel," Long said. "According
to figures published in 1969, of the
country's 1,200 doctors, 1,000 are
working either in Guatemala City or in
the regional capitals. This leaves 190
doctors who are working in municipal
capitals and only ten in the rural areas,"
he added.
(Continued on page 3)