Ford Taps Busse For National Panel
President Ford has named Dr. Ewald W. Busse to a
six-member biomedical research commission to study
research financing and priorities for research in the
Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW).
The White House panel was created by Congress
following discontent within the National Institutes of
Health (NIH) over research funding and the executive
branch’s firing of the last two NIH directors.
The commission will look into all biomedical and
Ijehgvioral research funding within HEW, of which NIH is
a pat’t, but with special emphasis on what Busse called
the behavioral side of NIH."
This will include agencies dealing in the behavioral
sciences, such as the Alcohol, Drug Abuse and Mental
Health Administration, of which the National Institute of
Mental Health is a component.
The panel was sworn in by Vice President Rockefeller
and Busse said a report from the commission to the
President is expected in about 15 months.
Busse is associate provost and director of medical and
allied health education. For 20 years he was chairman of
i
the Department of Psychiatry and he is a past president
of the American Psychiatric Association.
One of the country’s leading authorities on aging and
care of the elderly, Busse established Duke’s Center for
the Study of Aging and Human Development in 1957 and
headed it until 1970.
Because of his background in problems involving the
aged, Busse was called on to speak at the President’s
Economic Summit Conference in Washington last fall.
The new biomedical research commission is chaired
by Dr. Franklin Murphy, chairman of the Times Mirror Co.
of Los Angeles ano former chancellor of the University of
California at Los Angeles. The co-chairman is Dr. Robert
Ebert, dean of the Sci ool of Medicine at Harvard.
The other three members are Dr. Albert L. Lehninger,
chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at Johns
Hopkins University; Dr. Paul A. Marks, vice president for
health sciences at Columbia University; and Dr. David B.
Skinner, chairman of the Department of Surgery at the
University of Chicago Hospital and Clinics.
Benno Schmitt, chairman of the President s Cancer
Panel, is an ex-officio member.
DR. EWALD W. BUSSE
ntcRcom
duke univeusity mcdicM ccnteR
VOLUME 22, NUMBERS
FEBRUARY 7,1975
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
**Where'd You Get Them Bird Legs?”
Carrie Typifies The Best of Patient Care'
By David Williamson
A medical center the size of Duke has
many "unsung' heroes.
They re the kind of people one never
reads about m the newspapers—not
making waves and not making
headlines. They come to work and do
their jobs day in and day out, year in and
year out.
They won't go down in the annals of
medicine, and they don t make much
more money than it takes to just get by.
They re the backbone of the medical
center.
And Carrie Allen, an advanced patient
care assistant on Reed Ward is one of
them.
Mrs. Allen has worked at Duke since
1969—not a long time by some
standards—but in those six years she's
made her mark with everyone who has
come to know her.
She’s the kind of woman who does a
lot to make patients well again.
The mother of five didn t begin her
working career in the health care field.
Believe it or not, she started out
making battleships. During World War
II. she moved to Philadelphia at age 17
to get a job to help support her parents.
Her mother had her brothers and sisters
to care for. and her father was sickly
and couldn t work.
Mrs. Allen first )ob was as a welder,
and she fused massive steel plates into
the sides of the U.S.S. Wisconsin. She
also repaired the
luxury-1 iner-turned-troopship H.M.S.
Queen Elizabeth and other
shell-damaged vessels—often putting
in seven days a week.
I could weld anything but a broken
heart and the break of day, she said
proudly while recalling her hard hat'
days. I made S200 a week, and that was
a lot of money 30 years ago.
After the war came 18 "green
seasons■' with the Venable Tooacco Co.
and then a stint with the W. G. Pearson
School as a teacher s aid.
Then she transferred to the hospital
and found her calling as a patient care
assistant.
There s nobody w(io doesn't love
that woman, said Debbie Humphreys,
head nurse on Reed Ward. "She gets
more individual mail from patients than
everyone else on the ward combined.
Letters just addressed to the ward
usually mention her.
If she s responsible for one group of
patients one day and another the next,
she II be sure to stop and see every one
of the first group before leaving work,
Ms. Humphreys added. She ll do it
until they ve gone home, too.
And if we have a patient who is
depressed and won't confide in us. we
always call a "consult" with Carrie and
then send her in. She s our secret
weapon.
Mrs. Allen’s philosophy of life is
UNSUNG HERO—,
Carrie Allen, an AP-
CA on Reed Ward,
is one of those peo
ple you don't read
about much in the
newspapers, but in
her own way she's a
great person to
work with, say her
fellow employees.
She has contagious
gifts of laughter
and goodwill. Photo
by David Williamson)
simple. It works for her. As she
explained it — "The longest day goes
away when you can laugh. I ve always
got something funny going for the
patients and the staff. Laughter is the
best medicine."
Personally, she carries a deep
religious feeling and a belief in God.
He keeps my motor running, she said.
But she doesn't force her beliefs on
others.
You'd have to try awfully hard not to
like the jovial 48-year-old, people on
Reed say. She buys Christmas presents
for everyone " as far as my little money
will go.' She sends everyone
valentines. She brings her fellow
employees something different to eat
every day. She gives candy to patients.
Mrs. Allen keeps young by working
hard, doing more than her share
without ever complaining and by
getting involved.
She has nicknames for everyone.She
calls male patients ‘ roosters ' and
female patients " hens." Given a choice,
she confided, " I prefer the roosters."
Martha Reeves, assistant head nurse,
admitted that her own nickname is
" Miss Hips. "
Ms. Humphreys recalls the day she
assumed head nurse responsibilities on
Reed. She was nervous at the beginning
of her first staff meeting until Carrie,
who she didn't know, walked up to her
and demanded, " Where did you get
them bird legs? " That put everyone in
hysterics and broke the ice.
New nurses, many of whom share an
early loneliness, all get the same
treatment from Mrs. Allen. She reaches
out to them just as she does to the
patients.
"I know I wouldn t want everybody I
didn t know looking at me and not
saying anything, ” she explained.
That's just getting along. Its what
makes the world go round.
Now I told it tike it is."