On Information Service Line
The Callers Ask^ 'Do I Have Cancer?'
By William Erwin
The first two months of calls to the
new Cancer Information Service here
show the question North Carolinians
ask most often about cancer is “Do I
have it?”
Callers also have asked:
* Can you catch cancer from your
dog? (No),
* Can a bump on the head cause
cancer? (No), and
* Does biting the inside of your
mouth cause cancer? (Maybe).
A total of 982 people phoned in
questions to the service in the two
months after its toll-free telephone
line opened. The number is
1-800-672-0943. (In Durham, Burner
and Creedmoor, the number is
286-2266.)
Physician-Approved Answers
Located at the Comprehensive
Cancer Center, the service gives
physician-approved answers to
almost any question about cancer.
Staff members and trained
volunteers man the phones from 9
a.m.-4:30 p.m. weekdays. At other
times, a caller can leave his name and
phone number and will get a call back
the next working day.
Financed by the National Cancer
Institute, the service was set upby the
Duke cancer center and the
Computer Text
Receives Hearst
Foundation Help
riie continuing development of a
computerized textbook of medicine
here has received support from the
William Randolph Hearst
Foundation.
1 he foundation has awarded Duke
$51,000 to help finance the project.
The computerized textbook
program is aimed at accumulating
and storing in data banks patient
information from the time of
patients' initial medical attention
through their follow-up care.
The first chapter of the textbook,
covering the care of heart patients,
already is in operation at Duke. Yet to
be developed are chapters on
gastroenterology, endocrinology,
kidney disease and cancer.
As information accumulates, a
physician will be able to compare the
cases of hundreds or thousands of
other patients with that of the patient
he is treating at the moment.
Bv charting the multiple factors
that go into making up a patients
medical “profile," the physician can
compare his patient with others of
similar medical history. He can then
judge the treatment steps that had
best results in their cases before
deciding what course to follow with
his patient.
Because of a computer's storage
capability for detailed information
and the rapid accessibility of that
information to the physician, Duke
researchers believe the project will
provide the most detailed and
comprehensive clinical information
physicians have ever had at their
disposal for making judgments and
decisions.
In addition to the Hearst grant, the
project also is l)eing supported in
part bv the Rippel Foundation, the
National Library of Medicine, the
National Heart and Liuig institute,
the Jefferson-Pilot (^orjxHation. and
the National (Center for Health
Services Research.
American Cancer Society to “help
North Carolinians become more
responsible for their own health care,
especially in the area of cancer,"
according to Dr. Diane McGrath,
director of the service.
“It’s surprised me that we’re in the
summer months and we have this
many calls,” Dr. McGrath said. She
added that the first 982 calls “isn’t
even the tip of the iceberg as far as
the job that needs to be done.”
By David Williamson
For most people in this country,
Afghanistan is just another far away
place with a strange sounding name,
existing only in the pages of National
Cieographic Magazine.
Relatively few Americans could say
that the U.S.S.R., Iran and Pakistan
form the mountainous nation’s
northern, western and southeastern
borders, that a thin tongue of Afghan
land stretches across northern India
to the Peoples' Republic of China and
that the two official languages are
Pashto and Farsi.
Dr. John Reed, an associate
professor of ophthalmology here,
who spent his vacation working in the
capital city of Kabul, is now an
exception to the general rule.
■“Crossroads of Asia”
After four weeks in Afghanistan,
the "crossroads of Asia " is as real for
him as the Hindu Kush mountains
Questions have come in from 82 of
the state’s 100 counties. Counties
where the most calls originated are
Durham (88), Wake (87) and
Mecklenburg (82).
More Female Callers
“Most of the calls were from
females,” the director said. ‘That was
predictable; women are the link
between the family and the health
care delivery system.”
One out of every four callers
that make the country look from the
air like blankets on an unmade bed.
Reed traveled with his wife Sally
and their three children to the
Moslem republic in J une to serve as
guest lecturer at the National
Organization for Ophthalmic
Rehabilitation (NOOR) Hospital in
Kabul.
In an interview earlier this week,
he said he had been invited by the
hospital’s director whom he met at
the annual meeting of the American
Academy of Ophthalmology and
Otolaryngology in Dallas last
September.
The eye hospital, the only one of its
kind in Afghanistan, paid for the
surgeon's round trip ticket, but Reed
paid all his family's expen.ses and
received no other compensation for
his work.
Teaching ,
"1 spent most ol niv vacation
phones because she or someone else
in the family has a cancer wafning
signal.
“The person will describe
symptoms —a mole that’s growing or
a breast lump, for instance — and
wants to know whether that means
cancer,” Dr. McGrath said.
Refer to Physician
The service reads to the caller a list
of cancer symptoms for any part of
(Continued on page 4)'
lecturing on corneal surgery and
external diseases of the eye,” he said,
adding that he also performed 10
corneal transplants.
“1 wasn’t working as hard as 1 do
here, but 1 was working harder than I
like to on vacations,” he admitted
with a smile.
Ministering to the eye problems of
people in foreign lands and teaching
those who will remain behind are
nothing new for the tall Columbia,
S.C., native. Two years ago, he spent
several weeks m Bangladesh in a
similar capacity, and between I%9
and 1970, he served as director of the
Eye Bank at St. John Ophthalmic
Hospital in Jerusalem.
■ Supentidon
He pointed out that in
Afghanistan, like Bangladesh,
religion and superstiuon sometimes
impede the improvement of health
(Continued on page 3)
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6ukc univeRsity ccnteR
VOLUME 23, NUMBER 30
JULY 30,1976
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
YOUNG AFGHAN WITH EYE PROBLEMS—Dr. John Reed, surgery. He said he saw at least three times the number of
associate professor of ophthalmology, took this photograph of unusual eye diseases in the Asian nation as he does here, and
a female infant with congenital glaucoma and cloudy corneas most of the problems can be traced to poor nutrition and ^
on his recent trip to Afghanistan. The Duke specialist spent unsanitary practices,
most of his time teaching resident physicians but also did some
Ophthalmology's Reed Sees Problems,
Progress During Afghan Teaching Stint