SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT
Intertwine
Duke University Medical Center
FEBRUARY 11,1977
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
Marriage and Medicine:
Love in the Medical Center
A 3 a.m. phone call from the
Emergency Room at Johns Hopkins
introduced Dr. John E. Dees to his
future bride.
Dr. Shirley Osterhout received her
heirloom engagement ring in the
Duke morgue.
Dr. Jerome S. Harris "commuted"
between Durham and Denver while
his wife was stationed there in the
Army.
Love between physicians can
blossom in peculiar places and
survive unlikely circumstances, M.D.
couples working in the medical
center have found.
Several of them agreed to share
some of those experiences for this
Valentine's Day issue of Intercom.
Highly Uncertain Future
"I don't know how we could do
any more against the recommended
way of selecting a mate," remembers
Susan C. Dees, professor of
pediatrics. "We didn't know each
other very long. We didn't know
each other's families. And we had a
highly uncertain future."
"I didn't get much sleep in those
days," commented John Dees,
professor of urology. Residents in
the 1930s received room, board,
laundry and uniforms, but no
stipends until the sixth year when
they were paid $75 a month.
"I put myself through residency by
selling blood," he said. "In those
days you could get $50 for a pint of
blood." He also earned extra money
setting up tests in pathology
between 7 and 9 a.m. and received $5
from pathology for each gross
autopsy he performed at night.
The Osterhouts knew each other
much longer than six weeks when
they married in 1960. They had met
in 1954 when Dr. Suydam Osterhout,
then chief resident in medicine,
taught microbiology to medical
students including Shirley Kirkman.
Morgue Was Private
If Not Romantic
When he returned to Duke after
three years at the Rockefeller
Institute, they began dating. "No
one knew we were serious," recalls
Shirley Osterhout, now assistant
professor of pediatrics, clinical
director of the Poison Control
Center, and assistant dean for
student affairs.
The morgue just down the hall
from the post office was the only
convenient and private place they
could find for presentation of the
heirloom ring that Syd's family had
just mailed to him.
When Dr. Jerome Harris first saw
Dr. Jacqueline Hijmans in the dining
''You have to be willing to do things to help the other
person. That's the key."
fm
'iBii
DRS. GALE and KENNETH S. MCCARTY JR.
Story and photos by Ina Fried
room, he was chairman of the
Department of Pediatrics and she
was a fellow in gastroenterology.
After completing the fellowship. Dr.
Hijmans volunteered for the Army
from 1957-59 and was stationed in
Denver.
"I took in all the medical meetings
by way of Denver," Dr. Harris said.
"If I had a meeting in Chicago, I went
to Chicago and then to Denver
before coming back to Durham."
They married in Denver in 1958.
No Intention of Marriage
Dr. Sue Kimm and Dr. Seymour
Grufferman were locker-mates while
attending the School of Public Health
at Harvard.
"Neither of us had any intentions
of getting married," she said. But
there they were two days before
Christmas in 1%7, getting married in
Harvard Memorial Church.
The year of 1963 was a very busy
one for Dr. Robert A. Gutman and
Dr. Laura Thurston. They met while
interning at the University of
Washington and married during the
year. "We did a lot of chatting at two
o'clock in the morning," said Laura
T. Gutman, now assistant professor
of pediatrics and assistant clinical
professor of pharmacology.
Gale Van Pelt was an
undergraduate premedical student
working at the hospital in the
summer of 1%9 when she met
Kenneth S. McCarty Jr., a medical
student, on Osier Ward.
"I spent a lot of time on Osier after
that," she said. They married the
following March and named their
dog Osier in honor of the location of
their courtship.
While both were going to school
year-round, Ken earned money by
evening and weekend jobs on the
medical wards and Gale did typing
at night for the Private Diagnostic
Clinic. Both worked for a time at a
nursing home.
Hectic But Fun
Life has been hectic, especially
trying to arrange the same nights off
when both were on the house staff.
"But it's been fun," said Gale,
clinical fellow in rheumatology, "and
we probably see each other at the
hospital more than most couples do
during the day."
"You have to be willing to do
things to help the other person," said
Ken, assistant professor of medicine
and director of the Tumor Steroid
Receptor Lab. "That's the key."
Having two professionals in the
family leads to "more women's lib in
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