Contributor: Bob Schwartzman

I have many memories of the time I spent with you at morning report and on the Wards at Duke. You taught me how to think about clinical medicine and how to run an excellent service. You were rarely correct on CPC's, but the way you thought out the pathophysiology of the patient's problem always amazed me as any one of several possibilities could have been correct.

> The Duke Medicine service that you set up for us taught the value of all aspects of the history and physical examination as well as meticulous patient care although I doubt that some of your one line patient clinical notes would pass present day compliance regulations. You projected a massive presence on the Ward which inspired all of us. I owe you a great debt for being my teacher and for any of the success I have had in medicine.

Title: Snapshots of Dr. Stead in Action

These "snapshots' are the things that I have treasured the most:

Of him hanging off the curtain rail as I presented a patient, with his white coat collar up, and of his interminable eye ground evaluations during the patient presentations.

There was the time I was having difficulty seeing the eye grounds of a patient in the middle of the night when this long tuxedo-encased arm came in to take my ophthalmoscope and help me out.

It was Dr. Stead coming into the hospital from some function to see how "night medicine" was being conducted at Duke Hospital. Being called down to the office by Bess Cebe always was exciting.

"Great thought time" during morning report was an amazing phenomenon as most of us were asleep within thirty seconds.

His discussion of our competence with the nurses on the floor after our rotations and his actually sitting down with our charts late at night to see if we followed up on the low hemoglobin.

Explaining to one of my fellow interns that possibly Mr. Jones never took his insulin and came to "Mr. Duke's place" on a regular basis to teach us how to care of diabetic ketoacidosis.

One incident I remember like yesterday was a casual observation he made while walking down the hall. He heard a patient cough and turned to me and said, "That is lung blastomycosis."

He is an amazing clinician. These are just a few of the incidents that come to mind.

Title: Some More Duke Memories

Lots of memories come back after almost 40 years!

       I'm not in our intern class picture because Joel Temple wouldn't let me leave the screening desk in the clinic and I was too much a "goody-goody" to tell him to get stuffed. It still ticks me off because in those days I was cute and had hair. 

       Mort Bogdanoff told me that I was the most hostile intern he had ever met, which filled me with pride until about 1970 when in neurology residency I met Larry Kerson, who interned a couple of years after us and told me that Bogdanoff had said the same thing to him. So my record didn't last as long as the Bambino's 60 homers.

     The terrific JAR's who kept me from disastrous errors.

       Doing the right thing rather than the easy thing because I knew I would have to explain myself to Bruni Herrero in the AM.