Medical update to highlight Davison Club Weekend
An "Update on Medical Progress at
Duke," business and social activities and
Blue Devil football are all on the schedule
as more than 200 members and guests of
the Davison Club gather at Duke this
weekend.
The Davison Club is a donor
organization whose members pledge at
least $1,000 annually to the School of
Medicine. It was founded in 1969 to
honor the late Dr. Wilburt C. Davison,
the first dean of medicine at Duke.
Serafin and Lefkowitz to speak
The medical update will be presented
tomorrow morning. Dr. Donald Serafin,
associate professor of plastic surgery, will
speak on "Microsurgical Composite
Tissue Transplantation: A New
Horizon." This summer, Serafin led a
team of Duke surgeons which created a
thumb on a child's right hand from the
second toe on her left foot. (See Intercom,
9/15/78.)
Also speaking tomorrow morning will
be Dr. Robert J. Lefkowitz, a professor of
cardiology in the Department of Medicine
and an assistant professor in the
Department of Biochemistry.
Lefkowitz has received two research
awards this year for his studies of
receptors, groups of chemicals usually
located on cell surfaces that are believed
to act as anchors to allow the body to
interact with various naturally occuring
and foreign substances. (See Intercom,
3/17/78 and 6/2/78.)
Other activities'
The weekend will include receptions in
the homes of University President and
Mrs. Terry Sanford and Dr. and Mrs.
William G. Anlyan. Anlyan is vice
president for health affairs.
A club business meeting will follow the
medical talks, and the afternoon will be
devoted to the Duke-University of South
Carolina football game.
R. C. (Bucky) Waters, assistant to the
vice president for health affairs, is
Duke University
Medical Center
Intercom
executive director of the Davison Club.
Club officers are Dr. G. B. Hodge of
Spartanburg, S.C., president; Dr. Hugo L.
Deaton of Hickory, vice president; and
Dr. Rufus R. Hambright (M.D.'SO) of
Greensboro, secretary-treasurer.
Waters said the Davison Club now has
257 active members representing 25
states, the District of Columbia and
Johnston Island.
He noted that over the past year
membership has increased 20 percent and
that the club generated nearly a quarter
of a million dollars for the medical school
during that time.
VOL. 25, NO. 38
SEPT. 22, 1978
DURHAM, N.C.
New Imaging Division established in radiology
In an effort to spare patients the
expensive and inefficient "shotgun blast"
of diagnostic tests they have faced in
recent years, the Department of
Radiology has created a new Imaging
Division.
The division, according to department
chairman Dr. Charles E. Putman, will
bring together for the first time all of the
different tools radiologists use to
determine what is wrong with a patient.
Putman said
Dr. Carl E. Ravin,
former clinical
director of diag
nostic radiology
and assistant
professor at Yale
University School
of Medicine, has
been appointed
chief of the new
division.
"Departments of radiology at the larger
medical centers in this country have
traditionally, been divided into separate
»«»
DR. RAVIN
disciplines," Putman explained.
"Unfortunately, a patient could undergo
six or seven different studies without the
radiologist doing each of those studies
knowing what else had been done."
The most information
at lowest cost
The Imaging Division here will
encompass conventional radiology (X-
ray), nuclear medicine and the newer
techniques of computer tomography and
ultrasound, he said. Conferences that
include physicians from all of the
radiologic specialties are being held to
discuss patients and decide which tests
are likely to produce the most diagnostic
information at the lowest cost to the
patient.
"We don't need and society can't afford
the continuing 'shotgun blast' of
diagnostic procedures," Putman said.
"Most radiologists now realize that if we
don't address the problem of cost,
someone in the federal government is
going to address it for us."
The move into the new Duke Hospital
Project encourages students
to HEED the call of good health
By Robert Wilson
Duke News Service
Like liberty and union, youngsters and
junk food often seem one and inseparable.
The corn-chip commandoes of the
lunch hour consume snacks laden with
salt, sugar and saturated fat — the triple
threat of higher risk in heart disease, high
blood pressure, diabetes, dental
disorders, even cancer.
And that list of bad news is just a
sampler of self-hazardous behavior in the
young, according to Dr. William
DeMaria, a pediatrician who thinks
something can be done about it.
Add encounters with alcohol and other
drug abuse, inability to cope with stress
and a low premium on physical fitness,
and you've got a witches' brew that can
cause considerable trouble in adulthood.
Common sense, moderation missing
Sometimes, DeMaria said in an
interview, it looks like the nation has lost
sight of maintaining "a sound mind in a
sound body," a neglect that's taking a toll
of today's youngsters.
"We have broken through the borders
of common sense and moderation so far
as our behavior toward personal health is
concerned," said DeMaria, a clinical
professor of pediatrics at Duke and
medical director for N.C. Blue Cross/Blue
Shield.
DeMaria, who earned his M.D. at Duke
in 1948, had been a fulltime faculty
member in pediatrics here since 1952
when he joined Blue Cross as its first
medical director two years ago. He also
served as associate dean of medical and
allied health education with responsibility
for continuing education.
"We have become blind believers in pills
and procedures which we hope will rescue
us from problems created by our various
excesses," DeMaria said.
The most startling thing to him, he
said, is that a child's journey into this
(Continued on page 4)
North next summer should facilitate the
new system of handling patients by
bringing all of the equipment into close
proximity, the physician said.
Conventional radiography will form the
hub of the department while nuclear
medicine, ultrasound and computed
tomography will be located around it.
Putman said the unified "imaging"
concept in radiology is not original to
Duke, but geographical hmitations and
professional resistence at some medical
centers have prevented it from becoming
more widespread.
"I think we have a unique opportunity
to do something good here, not only for
our patients, our institution and our
academic interests, but also for other
hospitals as well," he said. "A lot of people
will be looking at us to see how this
works."
Improved avenue for training
Duke now has one of the three largest
radiology residency programs in the
United States. Putman said he believes
the new system will provide an improved
avenue for training specialists because
the young doctors will now be able to
follow the entire .radiological workup of
patients.
Eventually, he explained, as
radiologists become more patient-
oriented, they will become increasingly
(Continued on page 3)
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i
/
TAKING SOME TIMt. Ut-h trom his educational woric in Cabarrus County, Hootee theowl makes
his final approach for a consultation with Dr. William DeMaria. A dedicated foe of junk food,
Hootee is a continuing character in a pilot educational program aimed at promoting healthy
lifestyles for schoolchildren — and their parents. DeMaria, medical director of North Carolina
Blue Cross/Blue Shield and a clinical professor of pediatrics at Duke, is the mainspring behind the
health and education project, called HEED for short. IPholo hy }immy VJMace)