I
“PEDIATRIC SURGERY is a young specialty
with few fully trained surgeons and even
fewer training programs," according to Dr.
Howard C. Filston, co-author of a new book on
the subject. (Pholo by Parker Herring)
Duke physicians
cited as leaders
Town & Country magazine, in the
second of a two-part directory of
outstanding medical services and
specialists in the country, cited five Duke
physicians in its March issue.
In the February issue of the publication,
the Duke Medical Center, the
Comprehensive Cancer Center and seven
physicians here were listed as amon^ the
best in the country (Intercom, March 3).
In the continuation of its directory in
the current issue, the following Duke
doctors were named among the leaders in
their fields:
Dr. J. Leonard Goldner, hand surgery;
Dr. Nicholas G. Georgiade, plastic
surgery; Dr. Rebecca H. Buckley,
allergies; Dr. Jerome M. Feldman,
diabetes/hypoglycemia; and Dr. Charles
B. Hammond, reproductive endocrin
ology.
Duke University
Medical Center
Intercom
VOL. 25, NO. 12
MARCH 24, 1978
DURHAM, N.C.
New book discusses surgery on infants
By David Williamson
The evaluation, care and treatment of
infants who require surgery is the subject
of a new book just published by Appleton-
Century-Crofts of New York.
The book, "The Surgical Neonate," was
written by Dr. Howard C. Filston of Duke
and Dr. Robert Izant Jr., of Case Western
Reserve Univiersity's School of Medicine
in Cleveland, Ohio. Both are chiefs of
pediatric surgery.
"Pediatric surgery is a young specialty
with few fully trained surgeons and even
fewer training programs," Filston wrote
in his preface to the 266-page volume.
"Even in most
major teaching
centers in this
country, the
pediatric surgery
service is staffed
primarily by resi
dents and interns
from general sur
gery and pediat
rics who rotate
through for brief DR. FILSTON
periods with little prior knowledge of the
field."
Few of these young doctors have time
to read extensively in the standard
textbooks in the specialty, he pointed out.
And previously written handbooks,
which try to include too much
information, lack needed practical details.
Filston said he and Izant have written
what they believe is not a broad outline of
the whole field of pediatric surgery, but
rather a thorough introduction to the
most important factors in diagnosing and
managing the newborn who must
undergo surgery.
It is intended as a rapid orientation to
the subject for students, interns,
residents and physicians who occasionally
must treat such patients.
r
NOW THE OTHER
EYE'—Eye Center
nurses Patsy Starling
(left) and Joanne Ritter,
shown here with clinic
patient Jonathan Frady
of High Point, will
serve on the faculty of
"A Comprehensive
Approach to Pediatric
Eye Conditions." The
workshop is one of
three nursing inservice
education opportuni
ties planned for April.
See page 3 for the
story. (Pholo by Parker
Herring)
Computers make greased lightning seem slow as molasses
By Joe Sigler
In a flash. In the bat of an eye. As fast as
greased lightning.
Those are expressions we've grown to
use when we mean that something
happens really fast.
Well, you can put those expressions
away along with the cold molasses and
the seven-year itch because greased
lightning isn't even that fast compared
with the picosecond.
Members of the Duke Management
Club unfamiliar with the mammoth and
minute worlds of computers were
introduced to. the picosecond
(pronounced PEEK-p-second) at their
March 9 dinner meeting by Dr. Louis
Robinson, director of scientific
computing in the Data Processing
Division of IBM in White Plains, N.Y.
From tubes to chips
Robinson traced the development of
computers through their generations
from the use of tubes and transistors to
integrated circuits and silicon chips, but
he said a more accurate way of dating
computers is to look at how they are used.
Early computers, Ke explained, were
called calculators and processors, and
processing huge volumes of information
became their role, even influencing their
name identification to data processing
equipment^
"But we've moved on from there," the
former Syracuse University mathematics
teacher said, "and are in an era now that
I'd call the personalization of information
processing. We in the industry are
challenged to learn how to bring that
information out to the individual."
Around the world in 24 minutes
As illustrations, he said "you start to
see that happen everywhere you turn —
(computer) terminals at airlines, hotels,
off-track betting parlors, brokerage
houses and department store check-out
counters."
Forecasting the growth, Robinson said
there are several hundred thousand
computers in the world today with about
two million terminals connected to them.
By 1982, he said, the number of terminals
v\nll grow to five million.
The computer industry, he Said, "is an
extraordinary kind of technology that
enjoys every year a dramatic
improvement in price performance," a
compound rate of improvement that he
said has been 23 per cent per year over the
past 14 years.
If the airline industry had experienced
the same kind of cost improvement ratio
over the 14 years, he said a traveler could
go around the world today in 24 minutes
for $43.
Mail-order computers
Further illustrating the change in
computer hardware, Robinson referred
to an earlier computer called ENIAC
(Electronic Numerical Integrator and
Calculator).
"Today," he said, "you can buy a
computer more powerful than the
ENIAC, 20 times faster, with seven times
the memory capacity of the original
(Continued on page 2)
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