The Carter Center and River Blindness

A young boy using a stick to lead a blind man. I just had the opportunity to attend the Carter Center Board of Councilors meeting, to hear updates on some of their longstanding programs. The motto of the Carter Center, Waging Peace. Fighting Disease. Building Hope....

Polio and an Unsung Hero

Now, here’s a must-read book! Lynn Cullen’s latest book, The Woman with the Cure, is historical fiction about the last great polio epidemic of the 1950s and race to find a vaccine. Dr. Dorothy Horstmann, a pediatrician, epidemiologist, and virologist was the first...

Medical History Finds Me

I love studying the history of medicine, especially the pre-anesthesia, pre-antibiotic era. Fleming, Osler, Rush, Avicenna, Blackwell, Curie, Pasteur are all familiar friends to me now. So, it’s no surprise to me that nuggets of medical history find me when we are on...

Remembering my Mentor on International Women’s Day

I met Dr. Ruth O’Neal in 1975 when I was applying to medical schools. A gruff, older, white-haired lady, she was one of several doctors who interviewed me at Bowman Gray School of Medicine, now called Wake Forest. I remember it so clearly. I wanted medical school more...

On Being a Guest Editor

I just did something I’ve never done before; I was the guest editor for a medical magazine. I was giving a lecture at an annual conference at Emory School of Medicine, and fell into a conversation with Dr. Barry Silverman, one of the other speakers. Barry, an...