Duke University School of Medicine - Aesculapian Yearbook (Durham, NC)

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BIOCHEMISTRY In concert with all other departments in the Medical School, this department has been heavily involved in planning a new curriculum. Until the day that such a completely overhauled curriculum can be inaugurated, we shall continue to engage in serious self-study and to experiment with our present program. Two principles seem paramount in this endeavor. CID Biochemistry is no longer an isolated discipline nor an exercise in blood and urine analysis. It is the language of biology and the only available intellectual framework for understanding of all living forms-in- cluding man. It is our obligation to provide a grasp of this language and its conceptual framework. Once so equipped, the student is in position to grasp much which comes later in the curriculum-and which will be revealed by research during his lifetime. In this sense, it is almost a cultural course which is offered, a position which can be taken only in the full confidence that many of the preclinical and clinical faculty to be encountered later in the curriculum are fluent in this language. The biochemistry faculty has become inured to the recurrent, What has all this to do with medical practice? If it is irrelevant, then surely mankind is doomed ever to live under the threat of the same diseases which now take so heavy a toll, and medical practice must remain as frus- trating as ever. If it is relevant, as we fully believe and frequently demonstrate. one day medical practice will he far more rewarding than is presently the case. And it is our task to prepare for that day. Accordingly, our emphasis must remain on fundamentals: others who follow will reveal the utility of the clinical chemistry laboratory. Czj The experience of the student in the biochemistry laboratory must he designed to illustrate how biochemical MQW'-Ns-. My DR. BYRNE DR. THIERS DR. HANDLER information is gathered-not to illustrate or prove the notions discussed in lectures or conferences. If this hope is to be realized, the 'cookbook' must disappear, the Work must seem more like real investigation, and the tech- niques used must be as sophisticated as possible. To this end, as rapidly as possible the laboratory experience is being remolded. For next year, each student will engage in only four or five units of work, each requiring four consecutive days for its accomplishment. New ap- paratus will be introduced, several entirely new ap- proaches attempted. And, as this year, the ratio of students to staff in the laboratory, at almost all times, will be about ?i:r. This is an ambitious, and expensive program. Hopefully, a year hence, next year's class will think it has been worthwhile. llut they cannot really Ignozu this for many years. PHILIP H.XXDLEIi, Pii.D. Chairman of fflf' Dc'pr1rZmc'nl lame: B. Duke Professor DR. MCCARTY fourteen

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ANATOMY The Anatomy Department has twin objectives: scholarly achievement and instruction in all phases of anatomy. Scholarly achievement is secured by investiga- tions by the staff, graduate students, and some special students. The teaching program is the primary respon- sibility of the department and this requires nearly 5,ooo hours time altogether by the members of the Anatomy staff. The teaching method used most extensively is indi- vidual contact with the student in various teaching lab- oratories, particularly gross anatomy, histology, and neuroanatomy. As an extension to this elbow teach- ing, use is made of varied audiovisual aids including brochures, lantern slides, overhead proiecturals, motion pictures, and television presentations. The latter two are used more extensively at Duke than at any other 'Qin-nga., 'Mun DR. EYERETT DR. MARKEE school's Anatomy Department. These aids are employed both to elucidate concepts and to illustrate these concepts by appropriate examples. Throughout the course in anatomy, special attention is paid to both basic anatomy and to its relationship with applied anatomy. For example, roentgenographs, dis- cussions of clinical applications, and patients themselves are presented at appropriate times during the course of study. This diversified approach to the teaching-learning en- vironment provided to the individual student by the Anatomy Department leads to a pleasurable reward for the staff. In this way, we strive to give students, with very different strengths, backgrounds, and problems, the maximum opportunity to achieve the high potential they bring to Duke University Medical Center. Iosiaifii MARKER, Pu.D. fjhtlllfliltlll of thc' 1JC'fJLlI'l!71C'l1l ftznzcu' H. Duke' l,l'0fC'550I' DR. PEELE DR. I-IETHER1txc:ToN DR. DUKE th irreen

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PH TSIOLOGT PH ARMACOLOGT The Department of Physiology and Pharmacology seeks to provide a focus for growth of ideas in these disciplines within Duke University. Physiology is that branch of science which seeks to understand how living things work. Pharmacology is the study of how drugs modify physiological processes. To understand is to relate, in the mind, things new and unknown to things l already known and familiar. ln science, he things most known and familiar are the concepts of physics and chemistry. ln large part, physiology is the attempt to relate living processes to and through these concepts. Indeed, in IQI3 L. Henderson wrote uThe biologist studies living organisms as inhabitants of this world and, by holding fast to physics and chemistry, he has created modern physiology, a science which unites many, indeed, nearly all of the departments of physics and chemistry in the task of describing the processes of life. The De- partment of Physiology and Pharmacology comprises a group of scholars who are descendants in spirit from Henderson and the other founders of modern physi- ology. Like them, we are moved by the conviction that the modern physiologist and pharmacologist must ahold fast to physics and chemistry, but also, like them, our primary concern is to understand living processes. It is this emphasis on the actual function of natural cells, organs and organisms which distinguishes finsofar as a distinction is meaningfulj the physiologist from the biochemist and the biophysicist. DR. TosTEsoN In recognition of the fact that a few investigators working on closely related problems seem to proceed more effectively and happily than either a single scientist working alone or a large group, both Divisions of the Department fPhysiology and Pharmacologyj are or- ganized into a loose confederation of relatively autono- mous Laboratories. There are, at present, 7 such Labora- tories in Physiology and bg in Pharmacology. Upon completion of the new Medical Sciences Building fcon- struction will begin in the Fall of IQ64D, there will be X Laboratories in Physiology and 5 in Pharmacology. Since it is obviously impossible to represent the entire fields of Physiology and Pharmacology within any one DR. SALZANO DR. Kosryo fifteen