4
Total Nearly $50,000
Hospital Auxiliary Presents Gifts
The cardiac care unit has expanded
to supply constant care for four more
critically ill patients.
The respiratory care unit now has the
equipment to give better treatment to
patients with serious pulmonary prob
lems.
The division of neurosurgery now has
one machine that can monitor all body
functions of patients with severe head
injuries.
These are noteworthy accomplish
ments for any hospital. But, what
makes them extraordinary is that all
were made possible by gifts from the
Duke Hospital Auxiliary.
The auxiliary, composed of about
200 active and supporting members,
contributed nearly $50,000 in equip
ment and gifts to about 20 medical
center departments and other subdivi
sions during the past year.
Volunteers made the money through
profits from their two hospital snack
bars and the Pink Smock Gift Shop over
a several-year period.
Two of the major gifts were $13,250
to the Department of Medicine's respira
tory care unit and $13,200 to the de
partment's cardiac care unit.
The respiratory care unit, set up last
October on Cabell ward, provides spe
cial care for patients with acute breath
ing problems. It is the first such unit in
the state. Much of the unit's monitor
ing equipment was financed by the
hospital auxiliary's gift.
In addition to a direct-writing elec
trocardiograph machine and a cardiac
monitoring oscilloscope, the new equip
ment includes a device which checks the
adequacy of respiration by measuring
immediately the amount of carbon di
oxide in expired air.
Other new items purchased by the
auxiliary are electrical blood pressure
monitors, devices used to set respirator
rates, and several other acute respiratory
care machines.
"The ladies of the auxiliary have
been just marvelous," Dr. Samuel M.
McMahon, director of the unit, said.
"The equipment they have given us is
of immense value in treating patients."
Gifts to the cardiac care unit were in
the form of four new heart monitors.
These machines, which consist of an
(continued on page seven)
CARDIAC CARE UNIT—Dr. Henry McIntosh, chief of the cardiovascular
division, checks over one of the cardiac monitors given to the unit by the
Hospital Auxiliary. With him is Mrs. Betty Leach, project chairman for the
auxiliary. (Photo by Tom Knight)
HOSPITAL ORGAN—Chaplain P. Wesley Aitken and Mrs. Mary Emerson
of the auxiliary test out the new organ presented to the chapel by the auxilia
ry. (Photo by Jim Wallace)