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The Herald Sun, Durham, NC (excerpt)November 30, 2006
By Gregory Phillips
Duke Medicine: History in Motion
How did Duke University Medicine come so far, so fast?
"We are so much younger than other institutions with which we are compared," says Suzanne Porter, curator of the History of Medicine Collections at Duke's Medical Center Library.
Indeed, from the hospital and medical school established in 1925 with $4 million from James Buchanan Duke grew a top 10 nationally ranked medical center and health system with 91 buildings located on 210 acres, housing more than 18,000 employees and generating annual revenues of $1.5 billion.
Foundations for Excellence: 75 Years of Duke Medicine, published in October, is an updated history celebrating the roots, progress and achievements of the institution.
Research by the history's author Walter Campbell took him from the Duke Medical Center Archives ("one of the best medical archives in the South," he said) to the Rockefeller archives in New York.
"The main things you want to get your hands on are the primary sources," he said. "That's where to get the essence of true research."
Duke's strong ties with the Rockefeller foundation is perhaps the most striking and hitherto unnoticed connection he unearthed.
The book begins with Trinity College President William Preston Few's 1921 visit to the Rockefeller General Education Board in New York for advice on building a medical college.
The bonds that resulted from a Duke family-owned chemical company headquartered in New York's RCA Building with the Rockefeller Foundation resurface throughout Duke Medicine's early history.
When Duke "needed people for certain positions, they could turn to the Rockefeller Foundation," Campbell said. "They knew everyone in the world who was best at this."
The depth of the Rockefeller connection was news to many at Duke.
COPYRIGHT 2006 by The Durham Herald Company. All rights reserved
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