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VOLUME 22, NUMBER 45
DECEMBERS, 1975
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
Shytle To Handle Directorship Temporarily
Dr. Sessoms Resigns, Will Join BCBSNC
Dr. Stuart M. Sessoms, director of
Duke University hospitals since 1968,
has resigned to accept a new position
as senior vice president of Blue Cross
and Blue Shield of North Carolina
effective Jan. 1.
President Terry Sanford will
recommend to the University Board
of Trustees the appointment of John
D. Shytle as director pro tem while a
search is made for a permanent
director.
Shytle, a former controller of the
Veterans Administration in
Washington, came to Duke just over
a year ago as assistant vice president
DR. STUART M. SESSOMS
to Dr. William G. Anlyan, vice
president for health affairs.
Shytle is responsible for medical
center administration and will
continue in that role while heading
up the hospitals—Duke, Sea Level in
Carteret County and Highland
Hospital in Asheville.
A native of Shelby with B.S. and
M.S. degrees in business
administration and management
from George Washington University,
Shytle was the VA’s chief financial
officer from 1963 until 1972. For the
two years prior to his appointment at
Duke, he was director of the VA
Hospital in Richmond.
As senior vice president at
BCBSNC, Sessoms will have overall
responsibility for four of the
nonprofit health plan’s 10 divisions
— Blue Shield Activities, Provider
Relations, Benefits Administration
and Blue Cross and Blue Shield
Claims.
These divisions handle relations
with physicians, hospitals and other
institutional providers of health
services, claims administration and
government programs, and claims
payments, respectively. The four vice
presidents who head these divisions
— K.G. Beeston, J.W. Moffitt, C.B.
Sessoms and L.E. Griffith — will
report to Sessoms.
In addition, Sessoms will have
broad responsibility throughout the
entire organization in policy-making
matters, said BCBSNC President
Thomas A. Rose.
BCBSNC is North Carolina’s oldest
and largest voluntary health service
plan. Through its underwritten and
administered government programs,
the plan serves more than 2.3 million
North Carolina residents,
approximately 42 percent of the
state’s total population.
Benefit payments average $1.2
million jx^r day. The plan’s total
claims payments are expected to
exceed $450 million this year.
BCBSNC employs more than
1,150 people statewide. About 850 of
them work at the Blue Cross and
Blue Shield Service Center on the
Durham-Chapel Hill Boulevard and
at the Government Programs Service
Center on Duke Street in Durham.
“Dr. Sessoms’ outstanding
qualifications for this key position he
is assuming with our plan are readily
apparent to all the organizations and
individuals he will be workin'g with,"
Rose said. “He is well known and
highly regarded by our employees,
hospitals, physicians, other health
organizations, government leaders,
the business community and the
general public through the State and
Heart Sounding System Created
By Bob Wilson
Using the same echo-ranging
principle that enables submarines to
locate unseen objects, biomedical
engineers and medical men at Duke
are harnessing silent sound to give
physicians their most advanced
means yet of examining the heart
without x-rays or surgery.
The researchers have succeeded in
NEW DIAGNOSTIC TOOL—His face illuminated by the soft glow of a television
monitor. Dr. Joseph Kisslo watches a pulsating, ultrasonic image of a human
heart. Kisslo, a medical center cardiologist, uses ultrasonic scanning in clinical
applications. Fast and efficient, it requires neither the expense of x-rays nor risk
of surgery to show physicians how the various components of a heart are
functioning. The fan-like display above KIsslo's head is an oscilloscope image
being produced by a unit of the Duke cardiac scanner. (Photo by Thad Sparks)
producing cross-sectional images of
functioning hearts with the images
displayed on a television monitor in
pulsating, black-and-white pictures.
The pictures resemble weather radar
patterns to the untrained eye.
The research team has received a
$350,000 grant from National Heart
and I.ung Institute to continue
development work on the scanner,
which is believed to be the most
advanced of its type yet built.
Ultra-high-frequency sound waves
are beamed directly into a cardiac
patient’s chest from a plastic
transducer about the size of a
cigarette pack. Tiny, extremely
sensitive microphones in the
transducer pick up echoes bouncing
back from various structures of the
heart.
About one-millionth of the sound
beam’s original strength, the echoes
are converted into electrical signals
by the microphones and piped into a
multi-c(msole unit, where they are
processed for display on the
television monitor. I he images are
recorded on videotape for later
study.
Called a cardiac scanner, the device
“is giving us a new kind of image that
we didn’t have before," says Dr.
Joseph Kisslo, a cardiologist working
with the research team. I he scanner
is being used in clinical applications
in the cardiovascular lafjoratory at
(Continued on page 3)
JOHN D. SHYTLE
by national health organizations and
professionals.”
“We have for some time needed a
number two man who can take over
in my absence. In Stu Sessoms we
have a person who can more than
meet that need.”
One of Sessoms’ first assignments
will be to strengthen the
management process and assure
maximum coordination of effort in
the four divisions he is primarily
responsible for. Rose said.
The new senior vice president will
also accelerate the Blue Cross and
Blue Shield Plan’s ongoing cost
containment activities. Rose said.
BCBSNC has developed and
implemented a variety of cost
(Continued on page 2)
Reception
A reception will be held in honor of
Dr. Sessoms in the Medical Center
Board Room from 3-5 p.m. next
Friday, Dec. 12, so that medical
center personnel will have an
opportunity to say good-bye to him
before his departure.
Unionization
Vote Planned
The National Labor Relations
Board will conduct a vote here at the
hospital on Thursday, Dec. II, to
determine whether or not certain
groups of employees want to be
represented by a union.
Approximately 2,000 bi-weekly
employees are eligible to vote,
including secretaries, library and
laboratory personnel, patient care
assistants, records clerks, etc. Bulletin
lx>ards around the medical center
contain complete lists of eligible
employees.
The vote will be held in the
Courtyard Cafeteria from 6-10 a.m.
on Thursday and from 2-6 p.m.
Employees are urged to make their
opinions known by voting.