We are open for on-site research for Duke affiliates by appointment only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please use our online request form or email to schedule an appointment or get remote reference help. You can learn more about our current services here: https://archives.mc.duke.edu/blog/archives-reading-room-now-open-appoint...
The Duke University Medical Center Archives is honored to receive a grant from the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund. Awarded for history of medicine projects at Duke, the grant will enable the Archives to digitize films from the Audiovisual Collection. Because many of the materials in this collection exist solely on older and obsolete media formats, digitization will help the Archives preserve and improve access to important and unique footage documenting the Medical Center’s heritage. Films include interviews with prominent Duke figures such as Drs. J. Deryl Hart and Jay Arena, as well as footage about major innovations and key events, including the groundbreaking of Duke North and the 65th General...
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Though we are a relatively small department, our mission is big: to serve the Medical Center community by collecting, preserving, maintaining, and making available for research the permanent records of the DUMC and DUHS. To this end, the Archives offers a broad range of records management services to departments and offices across campus at no cost to our users.
Services we provide:
Benefits to your office...
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Please join us on Thursday, January 29 at noon for a lecture by Dr. John J. Freiberger, “The Past and Present of the Duke University Hyperbaric Chamber.” The talk will be held in Room 102 of the Medical Center Library & Archives. This event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be available.
Dr. Freiberger, M.D., M.P.H., is an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at Duke and Director of the fellowship program at the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology. He is the first Executive Director of Duke Dive Medicine, the extreme environment and diving injury consultation service hosted at the Duke Chamber. In 2014 Dr. Freiberger received the Undersea & Hyperbaric Medical Society’s Craig Hoffman/...
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The DUMC Archives is happy to announce that we have added more historic photographs to MEDSpace. Nearly two dozen images from the 1940’s to the 1980’s have been uploaded to the digital repository. Included are portraits of key faculty and staff, images of the 65th General Hospital, photos of nursing students (such as the 1960 image of students in the snow to the right), and hyperbaric chamber images. The new additions can be viewed by scrolling down to the bottom of MEDSpace’s homepage and clicking the “Recent Additions” tab on the far right. While some of the people in these images have been identified, others have not. You can help us identify individuals by visiting our ...
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Last month the School of Medicine welcomed alumni back to campus for the annual Medical Alumni Weekend. This week, we look at the origins of this tradition in honor of the first medical reunion which was held on November 29th, 1940.
The Duke Medical Alumni Association was established in 1940 and organized the first reunion later that year. The second meeting, held April 24-26, 1947, was attended by 281 alumni and featured presentations on various medical topics and a business meeting. The program for this meeting is pictured on the right. Reunions were held every three years (with a hiatus for World War II) until 1959 when an alumni weekend in its current form was proposed.
The first Medical...
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The DUMC Archives has a large collection of oral histories documenting the medical center’s history. In this post, we’re highlighting three that were conducted with individuals who worked with Dr. Grace Kerby. Kerby, who first came to Duke in 1940 as a research assistant in the Department of Pathology, is notable for a few “Duke firsts.” In 1946 she was the first female chief resident in the Department of Medicine, and in 1964 she became the first female full professor in the department. Additionally, from 1965 to 1971 she was the chief of the Division of Rheumatic and Genetic Disease in the Department of Medicine, the first female to become a division chief in the department.
The Archives is fortunate to have multiple documented recollections of Dr. Kerby. Her secretary,...
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The DUMC Archives Fall/Winter 2015 newsletter is now available! To read it, visit: /dumc-newsletter.
In this issue:
If you’d like to subscribe to our newsletter, email us at: dumc.archives@mc.duke.edu.
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It Came from the Archives! Halloween Highlights from the DUMC Archives Location: Medical Center Library & Archives, Level 2, Room 212E Date: Friday, October 31, 11am – 1pm
The Duke University Medical Center Archives is hosting a Halloween event at the MCL&A featuring a selection of eerie, fascinating, and rarely seen materials from our collections. Brave souls are invited to gaze upon spine-chilling artwork, stare into the faces of frightening death masks, behold macabre medical artifacts and instruments, and much more! Halloween candy will be available…for those who haven’t lost their appetite.
The event is free and open to all. For more information, contact Jolie Braun at...
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This week the Archives honors National PA Day (October 6) by highlighting a selection of resources available on the history of the profession and program at Duke. The Physician Assistant (PA) profession has its origins here at Duke with the pioneering efforts of Dr. Eugene A Stead, Jr. Stead first saw a problem for practicing physicians’ access to continuing medical education where many physicians, specifically in rural areas, did not have the time to seek further training due to lack of clinical support. To address this issue, Stead envisioned a physician assistant to provide clinical support to physicians. An experienced educator, Stead knew that many routine tasks performed by doctors were learned...
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The MCL&A’s new exhibit, “Under Pressure: Hyperbaric Medicine at Duke” is now on display. Featuring the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology, the exhibit charts the Center’s development, activities, and achievements since its beginnings in the early 1960s. Items on display include documents, photographs, and promotional materials spanning the Center’s history.
The Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology is the major facility in the Southeast and provides patient care treatment for medical conditions – such as carbon monoxide poisoning and decompression sickness – using 100% pure oxygen. The facility also has been a hub for innovative research, such as the record-breaking Atlantis dives...
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This month Duke Medicine celebrated completing 1,000 heart transplants, a milestone relatively few medical centers in the country have achieved. In honor of this, we wanted to take a look back to where it all started: Duke's very first heart transplant. This April 1985 issue of the Intercom recounts the intense preparation and work involved in the surgery, which included a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and technicians. Click on the image to enlarge and read the first page of the article.
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We are excited to announce the addition of a new collection: the Arts and Health at Duke Department Records. Originally called the Cultural Services Program, Arts & Health at Duke was founded in 1978 through the efforts of Drs. James Semans and Wayne Rundles. Together they launched a program –one of the first of its kind in the country...
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Did you know that Duke’s School of Medicine was one of the first in the nation to offer hospital administration courses? When Duke Hospital and the School of Medicine opened in 1930, hospital administration was a new, relatively small field. Yet for the first School of Medicine Dean, Wilburt Davison, it was an issue of special importance, as the process of organizing and establishing the hospital had made him well aware of the need for good hospital administrators. He also believed it was crucial to have more well-trained administrators throughout the South in order to help raise the standards of health care in the region. Inspired in part by Michael M. Davis’ 1929 publication, Hospital Administration: A Career, which stressed the importance of training for hospital...
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The DUMC Archives is happy to announce that we have added more historic photographs to MEDSpace. Over two dozen images from the 1940’s to the 1980’s have been uploaded to the digital repository. Included are portraits of key faculty and staff (such as the photo of Dr. Brenda Armstrong, to the right), images of the 65th General Hospital, photos of nursing students, and operating room images. The new additions can be viewed by scrolling down to the bottom of MEDSpace’s homepage and clicking the “Recent Additions” tab on the far right. While some of the people in these images have been identified, others have not. You can help us identify individuals by visiting our ...
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We are excited to report that today's post on the This Day in North Carolina History blog features DUMC history. Maintained by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, This Day in North Carolina History highlights people and places of the Tar Heel state, day by day. Today's entry looks back at the beginnings of Duke University Hospital, which opened for patients on July 21, 1930, 84 years ago today. Please visit the Duke University Hospital blog entry to read about the institution's auspicious first day and learn more. Thanks to the folks at the Department of Cultural Resources for...
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