Duke University
Medical Center
Intercom
VOL. 25, NO. 49
DEC. 15, 1978
DURHAM, N.C.
Puke physiologist says
Cultural exchange with third world needed'
By David Williamson
"The level of ignorance in this country
about Africa is quite fantastic," said Dr.
Geroge Somjen, a professor of physiology
at Duke. "Most of us just don't know
anything about the place, about the
people and about the problems they face."
Wishing to find out more about Africa
himself and to be useful at the same time,
Somjen spent last semester teaching
neurophysiology to medical and dental
students at Nigeria's Ibadan University.
He returned to this country not as an
expert on the African continent, but miles
ahead of those wrho form their
impressions from spotty news stories and
stereotypic movies.
For those who can't quite remember,
Nigeria is a former British crown colony
that achieved its independence in 1960
and' suffered through one of recent
history's bloodiest civil wars some 10
years ago. Its estimated 55-80 million
people occupy lands roughly six times the
size of North Carolina just north of the
equator on the Atlantic Ocean.
"I found the great majority of the
people there to be charming, welcoming,
curious and talented," Somjen said in an
interview. "There are a few who are
genuinely hostile to Europeans, but 1
found much less hostility than I had
expected."
The strides Nigerians have made
Better family physician training
goal of Kellogg grant
In an effort to improve residency
training available to family physicians,
the W.K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle
Creek, Mich., has awarded a four-year,
$645,932 grant to the Duke-Watts Family
Medicine Program.
During the first year, the grant will be
used to sharpen the teaching, research
and administrative skills of the program
faculty, according to Dr. James Bobula,
chief of the program's Education and
Evaluation Section.
During the remaining three years,
Kellogg funds will support workshops
and other educational activities for family
medicine faculty from across the United
States, said Bobula, an assistant professor
of community and family medicine.
Joint effort
The Family Medicine Program is
directed by Dr. William ]. (Terry) Kane. It
is a joint effort of Duke's Department of
Community and Family Medicine and the
Durham County Hospital Corporation.
Located in a new 23,000-square-foot
building on the grounds of Durham
County General Hospital, the program
serves as a model family practice, a
training center for 39 Duke residents and
a major health care provider for more
than 12,000 Durham-area residents.
"When family medicine was established
as a specialty in the early 1960s, family
doctors who usually had no experience as
(Continued on page 2)
toward educating their young people
have been enormous, Somjem said,
especially considering that until 30 years
ago, there were no universities in the
country at all.
Ibadan was the first of the seven
universities currently operating in
Nigeria, he said, and there are plans to
build another five. Ibadan is also the
second oldest institution of higher
learning in all of black Africa.
Classes too large
"Money, of course, is always a problem,
but I believe the largest problem they face
in education is the imbalance between the
number of teachers and the number of
students," the scientist explained.
As an example, he cited his own
neurophysiology class that contained
some 280 students, 220 of whom were
medical students.
While the classes aren't as large as
those at some Latin American schools,
they are still far too big for the kind of
individualized instruction that the
students really need, Somjen said.
Wanted to know more students
During his six months at Ibadan, the
Duke professor, who was born in
Budapest, Hungary, and has lived in
Holland and New Zealand, got to know a
few of his students, but not as many as he
would have liked.
A two-month student strike to protest
a tripling of fees by the military
government occurred during his stay and
compounded the problem of sheer
numbers.
Students, incidentally, enter medical
school there at age 18 directly after high
school. They are taught in the English
method which emphasizes laboratory
classes and more detailed instruction in
the basic sciences.
Three large nationalities
Like many emerging nations, Nigeria
has yet to complete the kind of unification
that more industrialized countries enjoy.
There are three large nationalities—
the Ibo, the Housa and the Yoruba—and
30 or so smaller ethnic groups, each with
its own language, dress, customs, dances,
traditions and religion. These differences,
which the official English language
attempts to bridge, still retard progress i^
education, public health and commerce.
"Ethnic differences mean a lot less at a
(Continued on page 3)
No Intercom next week
Because of the holidays. Intercom will not
be published next week. The final issue
for 1978 will appear Dec. 29. A special
Christmas issue of Heartbeat will be
distributed Dec. 21. For more holiday
news, see page 2.
t ^ ‘ ••
i \ ^ " '
HIP HIP H00RAY1—Seven-year-old JaV Winston reflects the
sentiments of the sign on the window of the pediatric playroom which
says, "Hip, Hip, Hooray! It's Christmas!" Meanwhile, 8-year-old Vester
("Peanut") Streater flashes his season's cheeriest grin while clowning
around with a Christmas wreath. The wreath was a gift to pediatric
inpatients made from quilted squares by pediatric outpatients. Winston
is a pediatric outpatient and Streater is a patient on Howland Ward.
tPhotos hy Parker HerringJ