What Happens After Duke?

 

Many of us will soon be attending the Annual meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology. A fixture of that meeting is our Cal Club Reunion and joint Duke/UNC Reunion. The opportunity to see many generations of Duke Dermatologists together at one time is always a highlight of the meeting for me. Since Dr. Cal began training dermatologists over 150 physicians have started their dermatology careers at Duke. For each and every one of those individuals the years at Duke provided the foundation for careers dedicated to caring for patients with skin disease, advancing our knowledge of skin disease and ultimately teaching others.

 

Duke residents and trainees are making truly outstanding contributions to Dermatology.

Harrison Turner of Greensboro has been named the 2006 Dermatology Foundation Practitioner of the Year, a wonderful and well-deserved honor. Janet Hickman of Lynchburg Virginia has become the first (since 1893) woman President of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine. Duke trained dermatologists are leaders in their communities from California to Florida to Rhode Island to Washington and numerous communities in between. Everyone here realizes that Drs. Murray, Olsen, Myers, Burton, Sidhu-Malik and Grichnik trained at Duke and are making significant contributions to training the next generation. You may not however realize that Duke is also present at the University of Washington (Danny Berg, Roy Colvin, Robin Hornung), University of California San Francisco (Whitney Tope), Dartmouth (Kathy Schwarzenberger), University of Minnesota(Kim Bohjanen), Johns Hopkins (Lisa Beck), Yale (Rich Antaya and Peter Heald), Emory (Carl Washington), University of Oklahoma (Carlos Garcia), MD Anderson Cancer Center (Madeline Duvic), Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (Tom Darling), Rush Medical Center (Michael Tharp), Mayo Clinic (Nick Rodgers) and I am sure that I am forgetting several other outstanding Duke graduates.

 

Without exception when I get a chance to meet up with our former residents and trainees I am always ask about how the people at Duke are doing. How are Mary, Carolyn, Felicia, Ann, Vinda, Judy and all the nurses doing? What is Corbin up to? How is Bev doing? What are Donna(s), Deborah, Tina, Jean, Mapoo, Fay, Wendy, Linda, Beth and many others up to? Are Bob, Linda and Jim Burch still in the lab? Is Rose still keeping Dr. Cook’s schedule running like clockwork? Who is working at the front desk since Mildred left? It is clear when you talk to all our former residents and trainees that they feel that they learned a great deal from everyone at Duke and that they truly valued their time at Duke. Speak to any of them for just a moment and it is clear; they are grateful.

 

The people of Duke Dermatology have made and are making a difference in the lives of our trainees. The success of Duke trained dermatologists is not only a result of their own individual talent and hard work but also due to what each of you taught each resident and trainee during their years at Duke. Your day-to-day work continues to provide every day lessons about compassion, professionalism, humor and dedication to the care of patients with skin diseases. During our day-to-day existence we tend to worry about schedules and notes and all of the many things that must be done to make Duke Dermatology work. We must not forget however that each of you has an impact on the future of Dermatology. Every day we are all remain committed to making sure that the future generations will make even greater contributions to taking care of patients with skin disease.