Newspapers / InterCom (Durham, N.C.) / June 1, 1967, edition 1 / Page 4
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New Emergency Area To Be One of Nation’s Best The whole ground floor of the new Main Entrance Building will be used for emergency pa tient care and treatment. It is said by many that the new emergency area, to be called the the Emergency Department, will be equipped and staffed to be one of the best in the nation. It is expected to be open for service by August, 1967. “In the present Emergency Room, overcrowding and conge.s- tion are our chief problems, for we have far exceeded our ca pacity in the thirty years since the facilities w^ere built,” noted Boi Jon Jaegar, assistant ad ministrative director and direc tor of the Emergency Depart ment. “We’ve just outgrown the old facilities in size and function,” he said. During the summer of 19(iO, the first committee was appoint ed to begin planning for new emergency facilities. The com mittee remained an active one, with the members changing over the years, until construction of the new Emergency Department began last fall. From this point on, the committee will serve in a policy-making capacity, de ciding how the new facilities are to be used. The new emergency area will be staffed differently from the old Emergency Room. In the old pj.R. there were no clinic directors, and members of the house staff were on call during the day and in the E.R. only at night. In the new emergencj’ area there will be initially two clinic directors, and members of the house staff will be on full time rotation. The organizational pattern, hoAvever, will remain similar to the current one. The administra tive and nursing functions come under the direction of Mr. Jae ger, but the functions of the specialty areas are under the direction of the departments (i.e. surgeons report to Sur gery, etc.). Because they are so extensive, some of the new emergency fa cilities will be utilized by the Out-Patient clinics during the day, as well as after the clinics close in the afternoon. The new facilities are de signed with the needs of imme diate patient care and treatment in mind. Xo longer will patients re quiring emergency surgery have to be wheeled to the fourth floor operating suites; they can be operated upon in the area’s four operating rooms, two designed for minor surgery and two de signed for major surgery. Fractures can be set prompt ly in a special fracture room, whereas in the past they have had to be taken to the orthopae dic clinic for treatment. New in concept and new at Duke are the eight “holding” rooms for those patients who will be kept under not more than twenty-four hours observation until it is decided whether they should be admitted or released. Another innovation will be the special facility for the care of emergency cardiac cases. “With the new facilities we will al.so be much better pre pared to meet a disaster,” said Mr. Jaeger. “There will even be a decontamination shower for treatment of those involved in nuclear or chemical accidents.” Emergency X-ray facilities will be available, and complex radiologic studies can be sent quickly up by elevator to the second floor of the new build ing, where the Department of Radiology will be housed. There will be a large waiting area for patients and their families and another waiting area for ambulance drivers, po lice, and representatives of the news media. Also at the dispo sal of those in the waiting areas will be public telephones and vending machines located in ad jacent corridors. A snack bar and additional vending ma chines will be conveniently lo cated upstairs near the new first floor lobby. Other facilities include: a re ception and registration area; two interview rooms; twelve general, one psychiatric, three obstetric, and three Employee Health examining rooms; Stu dent Health facilities; a refer ence library for the Poison Con trol Center and a treatment room for poison cases; three resident “call” rooms; a stu dent work room; an analysis lab for blood and other routine tests (to be open around-the-clock) ; and a small kitchen unit that Committee To Help Bridge Gap With the unlikely abbreviation of S.A.A.D. —S.A.C., a committee was formed last fall at the request of Dr. W. G. Anlyan, dean of the School of Medicine, for the purpose of improving departmental communications at the “operation al level.” The committee is composed of the head secre taries and administrative assistants in the four teen departments of the School of Medicine and is chaired by S. Douglas Smith, assistant to the dean. SAAD—SAC (Secretarial and Administra tive Assistants of the Departments for Sugges tions, Advice, and Communication) is neither a decision nor a policy making committee. Rather, it is a committee that provides frequent oppor tunities for secretaries and administrative as sistants to a.sk questions about and to work out problems arising from the policies established by the School’s dean and departmental chair men. “We lend the flavor, but the day-to-day problems are hamlled by these people,” com mented Dean Anlyan. INTERCOM - 4 It is hoped that SAAD—SAC will be able to help bridge the gap in communications that can so easily occur in an organization as large as the School of Medicine, which has a faculty of nearly 250 and a student body of over 300. Shown above at a SAAD—SAC meeting are committee members (from left) : Douglas Smith, chairman; Mrs. Elizabeth Pendergraft, Ob-Gj’n; Mrs. Edna Bvirgin, Ophthalmology; Mrs. Gene Winders, Pathology; Mrs. Ellen Bivens, Ana tomy; Mrs. Anne Rimmer, Psychiatry; Mrs. Millie Moore, Microbiologj’; Mrs. Mary Kauf man, Biochemistry; Sidney L. Paine, adminis trative assistant in Radiology; and Cecil C. Mc- Clees, assistant director of personnel who was invited to explain the new provisions of the minimum w^age law. Committee members not shown are: Mrs. Bess Cebe, IVIedicine; Mrs. Rosa Lee Russell, Physiology-Pharmacologj'; Mrs. Katharine Meier, Surgery; Linda Ford, Connnunity Health Sciences; Mrs. Margaret Hazard, Pediatrics; Mrs. Marilou Morgan, secre tary to the dean; and Mrs. Jean Warshauer, secretary to tlie assistant dean for student affairs.
InterCom (Durham, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
June 1, 1967, edition 1
4
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