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VOLUME 23, NUMBER 24
JUNE 18,1976
DURHAM, NORTH CAROUN A
When Australian Teenager Came to Duke,
Lions International Was Right with Him
By Joe Sigler
Eighteen-year-old Kevin Hobba of
Australia probably owes his life to a
group of firemen in Portland, Ore.
He also owes it to the care he
received at the University of Oregon
Health Sciences Center there and to
the surgery and related care he
received at Duke.
But there's no group of people the
Australian teenager and his family
will remember longer or with greater
warmth than members of Lions clubs
in both Oregon and North Carolina.
And Lions International is still
making its interest and concern felt at
Duke.
Exchange Student
Kevin Hobba was an exchange
student living in the home of a Lions
Club member in Oregon. Early this
year in Portland, on his way to the
airport to fly back home to Australia,
he had a cardiac arrest — his heart
stopped beating.
Firemen from a nearby station
resuscitated him and rushed him to
the University of Oregon Health
Sciences Center where he was put
under cardiac care and his condition
was stabilized.
Kevin's problem was a relatively
rare congenital heart defect called
VVolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome
(WPW).
Electrical Malfunction
WPW is a malfunction of the
electrical system of the heart. It's
what Dr. Edward Pritchett, who was
Kevin s doctor at Duke, describes as
“a short-circuit that by-passes the
normal electrical system of the
heart."
Red Cross Finds
More Blood Here
Medical center blood donors more
than doubled their recent pint totals
during the May 20 Red Cross visit,
according to Jane Mahoney, assistant
administrator for patient services,
who coordinates blood drive activities
here.
“We had 104 pints donated that
Thursday,” she said, “and I’d like to
thank everyone who came.”
Ms. Mahoney singled out the
Medical and Surgical Private
Diagnostic Clinics, the Storeroom,
the Business Office and the various
outpatient clinics as being
particularly well-represented in the
drive.
She also commended Annie Lee
Terry and Martha McFarland of the
Surgical PDC for their successful
efforts as.recruiters.
The next blood drive here is
scheduled for Wednesday and
Thursday, July 7 and 8, following the
July 4 holiday. It will be held in the
third floor Ambulatory Dining
Room, she said.
The first surgical technique for
correcting WPW was developed at
Duke, and the first WPW operation
ever performed was done here in
1967.
It was decided that Kevin Hobba
should be transferred from Oregon
to Duke for treatment.
Australian Silver Mine
Kevin's parents —■ his father works
in a silver mine in Broken Hill, New-
South Wales — had flown to Portland
at their own expense, but the bulk of
their expenses from then on,
including Kevin’s medical bills, were
picked up by the Lions.
Dr. Lacy M. Pressnell Jr. of Raleigfi
is a director of Lions International
and he remembers getting a call on
Friday, Feb. 20, telling him of the
Hobba family's expected arrival at
Raleigh-Durham the
following Sunday.
Pressnell and local Lions set to
work here, following up on work
already started by Lions in Oregon.
Lions Club Support
Lions purchased tickets for the
Hobba family to fly here, and also
covered the exp>enses of a doctor and
a cardiac care nurse to travel from
Portland with Kevin. They carried a
portable resuscitation unit with them.
When the party landed in Los
Angeles to transfer planes. Lions
members there met the plane and
saw them through for takeoff to
Raleigh-Durham.
When they landed here that
Sunday night, Feb. 22, Pressnell and
other Lions were at the airport.
When Kevin was safely admitted to
Duke Hospital, the Durham Lions
Club got his parents and the doctor
and nurse motel accommodations.
The medical team returned to
Portland the next day at Lions Club
expense, and the Durham Lions Club
rented an apartment near the
hospital where Kevin's parents
stayed.
Extra Heart Muscle
Persons with WPW have an extra
piece of heart muscle connecting the
chambers of the heart. This extra
connection permits the heart's
electrical impulses to move too
quickly, disrupting the regular
rhythm of the heart. Drugs can
control the episodes in some patients,
w hile surgery is required for others.
Surgery to correct the defect in
Kevin's heart was performed by
thoracic surgeon Dr. Will C. Sealy on
March 5. It was the 54th WPW
procedure performed at Duke, and
five more have been done since then.
Many others have been studied at
Duke but have not required surgery.
Surgery is only one part of a
complicated, cooperative program
involving many physicians,
technicians and others who pool their
efforts in each W’PW' case.
It was some of the auxiliary effort
involved in Kevin's case that attracted
the Lions' attention. They became
interested in the work performed by
Dr. Pritchett and his immediate
superior. Dr. John Gallagher, who is
director of the Clinical
Electrophysiology Lab.
‘Mapping’ the Heart
During the WPW operations, part
of the work of Gallagher, Pritchett
(Continued on page 4)
Gentry Named
Full Professor
Dr. W. Doyle Gentry has been
promoted to professor of medical
psychology, it was announced by
Provost Frederic N. Cleaveland.
Gentp^, 32, is head of the Division
of Medical Psychology at Duke and a
senior fellow at the Center for the
Study of Aging and Human
Development.
His present major areas of interest
include the psychological aspects of
coronary heart disease, chronic pain
and disability, and behavior
modification.
A native of Tampa, Fla., Gentry
received his Ph.D. in clinical
psychology at Florida State
University in 1969, at which time he
joined the Duke faculty as an assistant
professor.
Widely published in professional
journals. Gentry is co-editor of
“Psychological Aspects of Myocardial
Infarction and Coronary Care,” a
manual for nurse specialists,
physicians, psychiatrists and
consulting psychologists who must
deal with a patient’s emotional and
behavioral adjustment to disease and
illness.
SHOWING THE LIONS AROUND—Dr^ Edward Pritchett
explains some of the equipment used in the Clinical
Electrophysiology Laboratory of which he is associate director.
With him from left are Dr. John Gallagher, the lab director;
Wilbur Hales of Raleigh, governor of District 31-G, Lions
International; and Dr. Lacy M. Pressnell jr. of Raleigh, a
director of Lions International, Because of the role the Duke
research lab played in the treatment of a young Australian
heart patient the Lions sponsored, the Lions International
Foundation made a S3,600 grant to the lab. (Photo by Jim
Wallace)