DukeMed Alumni News
Winter 2008

Duke South:
MUSC Brims with Duke Pride

By Jim Rogalski

They don’t have a secret handshake or hold cloistered meetings by candlelight that begin with a baritone chant of “Duuuuuke, Duuuuke.”

That’s because many Duke-affiliated doctors at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) tend to wear their Duke pride on their sleeves…and their heads, and in their offices, and on their cars.

“I have a lot of Duke stuff in my office and when people walk in they roll their eyes as if to say, ‘oh, no, not another one,’” says Langdon A. Hartsock, MD,’87, HS’87-’93, associate professor and chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery.

The most recent count shows roughly 70 docs at the Charleston, S.C., medical institution with Duke ties. More profound is that ex-Dukies hold a full 25 percent of MUSC’s chairs. Those numbers have grown steadily over the past 20 years as MUSC—the oldest medical school in the south (1824)—works to build its stature among American medical Universities. It recently completed a major hospital expansion and is continuing its spirited recruitment of quality candidates from Duke and elsewhere.

At the top of the list of influential ex-Dukies there is the president himself, Raymond S. Greenberg, MD’80, HS’80, who has unabashedly carried the recruiting baton from leaders before him, including Ian L. Taylor, the former chair of internal medicine at MUSC and former director of the Division of Gastroenterology at Duke.

“Twenty-five percent of the chairs coming from one institution is pretty significant,” says Greeenberg, who arrived at MUSC in 1995 as provost and was appointed president in 2000. “We’re looking
for the best talent, and the quality of folks we’ve recruited from Duke has been very high.”

Joseph G. “Jerry” Reves, MD, the MUSC dean of medicine and vice president for medical affairs, is a former chair of anesthesiology at Duke and founding director of the Duke Heart Center. He says “we have leaders all over the campus from Duke.” The Duke mantra that, ‘“We train leaders in medicine,’ is especially evident vis-a-vis the people here.”

That makes Duke Chancellor for Health Affairs Emeritus Ralph Snyderman, MD, especially proud.

“I always mitigated any disappointment from losing good people by knowing that one of our goals was to spread the wealth,” he says.

Fred A. Crawford Jr., MD’67, HS’67-’69, ’71-’76, who has been at MUSC since 1979, first as chief of cardiothoracic surgery and for the past 19 years as chair of the Department of Surgery, began actively recruiting Duke docs as soon as he arrived there.

“I was obviously aware of the quality of Duke trainees,” he says, “and began to recruit for my department and for others.”

The Blue Devil mini-invasion of MUSC has become so apparent that some physicians there refer to the place as Duke South, according to Robert N. Axon, MD, HS’00-’04, an assistant professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine.

“It’s easy to identify Duke people,”says J. Philip Saul, T’78, MD’82, professor and director of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology and medical director of MUSC Children’s Hospital. “There are Duke chairs in offices, Duke diplomas on office walls, Duke hats, and paraphernalia on cars, especially around (basketball) games.”

Hartsock says that during meetings or conversations a Duke-affiliated doctor
is prone to uttering what has become known at MUSC as a “Duke-we,” when
he or she says, ‘“At Duke we did this’ or ‘at Duke we did that.’” More rolling of the eyes.

Sarah W. Book, MD’91, HS’91-’95, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, points out that there is a sizeable number of UNC-affiliated doctors at MUSC as well. “When I’m surrounded by them I can just say, ‘Go Duke,’ under my breath and it gets them all hot and bothered,” she says.

The bottom line, Hartsock says, is that “Duke is a proven product. It’s proven to work and when you get Duke people at your place they’re going to be hard workers and have all the important attributes— great patient care, communication skills, honesty, and integrity.”

William R. Tyor, MD’81, chief of neurology at the MUSC Veteran’s Administration Hospital and a professor in the Department of Neurosciences and Microbiology and Immunology for the past 15 years, is constantly inspired by the photograph in his office from the early 1940s of his father Malcolm Tyor, MD’46, former chief of gastroenterology at Duke, sitting with Dean Wilburt C. Davison, MD.

“Obviously I’m biased,” Tyor says, “but I think the ex-Dukies here are a large reason why MUSC has improved its status over the last 10 years, or at least why we have more Charlestonians who appreciate basketball.”