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

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DOUGLAS M. KNIGHT PH.D., LL.D., LlTT.D. President It is a pleasure indeed to congratulate you on your graduation and to say a word about my own in- creasing sense of the importance which the Medical School and the rest of the University have for one another. The best medical education today has moved toward the center of the university's intellectual venture-a center based not only in the physical and biological sciences but in law and the arts, engi- neering and divinity. All of these are necessary aspects of your concerng and one of our major preoccu- pations at Duke is to see that they come to support one another with greater depth and sensitivity than ever before. So difficult an effort on our part is the greatest compliment to your callingg but perhaps it also tells you something about the purposes of the university to which you belong. Together we share a great obligation to the educated life of our society-and that way of life has never been as important as it is now. I wish you every success .in it. DOUGLAS M. KNIGHT twelve

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'iw 5 415 'W 5 M' ADMINISTRATION FACULTY and HOUSE STAFF

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My warm congratulations, physician grad- uates of the Duke University Medical School, Class of 1966. We seem to talk of succinnic acid at 5 ABA, catheters in the ventral nucleus of the thalamus, and glioblastoma specific tumor antibodies, to mention a few issues in my own business, and these are impor- tant. Perhaps we talk too much about re- search, and it is a good thing that we do. If some people had not thought about re- search, only two-thirds of this class would have survived to graduate. fVide: male longevity 1900, 48+ years, but in 1950, 68+ yearsl. The real meat of the problem of gradua- tion is often missed, and this may be the fault of the teaching faculty because, as you know, the subconscious mind is not ac- claimed for its noise output. The faculty 1., knows that good medicine is magnificent BARNES WOODHALL, M.D. art, science, and performance, and it is Vice Provost for Medical Affairs prideful. The faculty knows that physi- cians, as few as there are, are not immortal, and the public needs more physicians. More germane is the next point, the intangible need or force of the physician to replicate, here a quasi-biological phenom- enon, or more human, a reflected glow from an end-point achievement. Have it as you may, we are proud of this class and know it as the best in the history of the medi- cal school. We further know that next year's class will be a little better, as it should be. Peanuts is a wise boy and apparently read the list of 100 great books before appearing on the car- toon page of the daily newspaper. One day Charlie Brown said to Peanuts, We have met the enemy!!! Peanuts answered, Yes, Charlie, we have met the enemy and they are us!!! This is a pertinent dia- logue for you and for me. We tend to be tyrannized by our ideals, particularly if our ideals are time-moldy or majority ,ac- cepted. Alexander Heard, Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, has expressed this well in his paper describing the Tyranny of the Ivory Tower. There is a distinction, and not a fine one at all, between ideals tempered by time or fashion and basic principles. In medicine, there is a basic principle of action, i. e., do what is best for the patient, for a patient, or for all patients. Some of you may watch this basic principle in action in Viet Nam, in a rather dis- turbing model called triage of patients, and shortly you will examine another model called Medicare You have been educated in a University setting and educated in problem-solving. We have the feel- ing that you are knowledgeable enough to view and critically judge these models and others that may appear, and we know that you will not seek the refuge of dogma. At any rate, medicine seems Very exciting in these years, and it may well be approaching a dim view of its zenith. We know you will do well. BARNES WOODHALL thirteen