Introduction

Something quite remarkable has happened in Durham over the past 80 years to create one of the great academic medical centers of the world. It began in a most unlikely site, amidst pine forests and tobacco fields far from any economic, cultural, or population centers, and within a world caught in the throes of the Great Depression. Even our harshest critics would be compelled to admit that something almost magical has happened here, against the odds.

It may seem improper for a physician-scientist like me to speak so unabashedly about magic. After all, physicians and scientists have strived for centuries to free our minds from superstition and quackery. However, the magic of which I speak is a different and nobler use of the word, a reference to that special something in our history that has made us what we are today.

I spoke of this magic a few years ago when we dedicated a classroom in our Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy in honor of Dr. James Wyngaarden, and accepted his gift of splendid mementos and artifacts of his career. (It’s worth a visit -- go and see!) During Jim’s service as Duke’s chair of medicine from the late 1960s into the 1980s, an extraordinary concentration of talented young academic physicians came to Duke. Today some of the young doctors he trained populate the senior and most accomplished ranks of our faculty today, while others have achieved great distinction elsewhere. During the same period Dr. David Sabiston honed a similarly remarkable concentration of talent in Duke Surgery.

Wyngaarden and Sabiston did not build from scratch or act alone, of course. Their success built upon a foundation constructed by the visionaries from our first several decades -- Davison, Handler, Hart, Stead, and others -- and it has been carried forward by a cast of notable Duke doctors, scientists, and leaders too numerous to name here. We today would be well advised to understand this history, and the causal elements of its success, if we are to protect and advance this tradition in our own time.

The history of medicine at Duke is brief enough that we still count among us quite a number of individuals whose personal involvement here reaches back almost to our origins. (Why, my own love affair with Duke is in its 39th year, and I’m still a relative youngster.) Their stories need to be heard, for within them are lessons about the Duke magic, and how it best can be nurtured and deepened in the decades to follow.

For this purpose I initiated a project, the first public manifestation of which I am now proud to present. Through The Magic of Medicine at Duke: A History in Our Own Words, I solicited stories, memories, and essays written by and about people who have studied, lived, and worked in the medical school at Duke, and who have made their own unique contributions to the magic that has ennobled this place.

The response from the essayists -- alumni, faculty, staff, and friends -- who took up my challenge has been pleasing indeed, and now I can share it with you. Please read, reflect, ponder, and enjoy the feast produced by members of our Duke Medicine family.

June 2009