In this edition of Working@Duke, we bring you stories that highlight the extraordinary impact of our Duke community and the medical benefits we enjoy as employees.
Our cover story highlights the incredible journey of the Gibson family. Audrey, the daughter of Anna Gibson, a Duke University Grants & Contracts Administrator, received a life-saving heart transplant at Duke, a procedure that cost $3.9 million. But with the help of Duke’s employee medical coverage, the Gibsons only paid a $600 copay.
Audrey’s mother shared with us, “After everything, our lives haven’t changed. Audrey just has a heart that works and a better quality of life. If you have the support you need, you can get through anything and move on.”
This story is a testament to the strength of our community and robust benefits provided as part of Duke’s total compensation package.
In this issue, we also celebrate Duke’s Centennial year by showcasing groundbreaking inventions that have made a significant difference in the world. One such innovation from the late 1930s dramatically reduced post-surgical infections using ultraviolet lamps. These stories remind us of Duke’s enduring legacy of innovation and excellence.
As we continue to share these inspiring stories, I encourage you to stay connected with us through our social media channels. A recent survey by Duke Human Resources revealed that many of our staff and faculty are not aware of our presence on social media. One survey respondent noted, “I did not know that there were Working@Duke social media pages until I completed this survey. I started following due to the survey.”
Following Working@Duke on Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and YouTube offers you access to exclusive content, real-time updates, and a glimpse into the vibrant life and work at Duke. It’s a great way to stay connected with your colleagues and the broader Duke community.
Get social with us:
• Instagram: instagram.com/workingatduke
• Facebook: facebook.com/workingatduke
• X (Twitter): x.com/WorkingatDuke
• YouTube: youtube.com/@WorkingAtDuke
Do you have any news to share about yourself, your school, department, or unit? We’d love to hear from you. Please send your updates and photos to working@duke.edu
Together, we can continue to support each other and celebrate the remarkable achievements that make Duke a special place to work.
BRIEFLY CONTENTS
4
Close to the Heart
Last year, Duke set a national record with 161 heart transplants. Among these remarkable cases is the story of Audrey Gibson, the daughter of Duke employee Anna Gibson.
8 Invented at Duke
Over the past century, innovators at Duke have made significant contributions in the marketplace and for public benefit. As Duke culminates its Centennial year celebration, discover a handful of inventions that have made a difference in the world.
10 A Seat in the Class
With bright, engaging faculty and students, the classroom experience is what makes Duke University a world-class institution of learning. Staff may enroll as auditors in certain undergraduate courses for $100 per course credit.
Protect yourself from COVID and influenza
With respiratory virus season beginning in October, now is the time to protect yourself from seasonal flu and the newest strains of COVID-19.
New COVID vaccines for the highly transmissible KP.2 variant have been approved and are available at Duke Primary Care and specialty clinic locations, as well as most pharmacies. The vaccines are covered by all Duke employee health insurance plans.
While not required, Duke staff and faculty are encouraged to get the COVID vaccine and submit documentation through Duke’s outside vaccination reporting tool.
Duke Employee Occupational Health & Wellness Executive Director Dr. Carol Epling said that getting the new COVID vaccine and seasonal flu vaccine at the same time is safe and shouldn’t lead to any issues.
It can take as long as two weeks for vaccines to begin providing protection from viruses, so getting them as soon as you can is a way to ensure being ready for the respiratory virus season, which begins in October and peaks between December and February.
“The new vaccines are our best line of defense for reducing our risk for a severe COVID infection leading to hospitalization or potentially death,” Epling said. “The new vaccines are designed to match more closely the strain that’s currently circulating so that our immune systems will be better prepared to respond.”
Learn more at vaccines.duke.edu
Other
Leanora Minai Executive Director of Communications/Editor (919) 681-4533 leanora.minai@duke.edu
Paul S. Grantham Assistant Vice President (919) 681-4534 paul.grantham@duke.edu Paul Figuerado Design & Layout paul.figuerado@duke.edu
Stephen Schramm Senior Writer (919) 684-4639 stephen.schramm@duke.edu
Social Media Manager (919) 660-8780 sonja.likness@duke.edu
Travis Stanley Multimedia Producer (919) 684-4262 larry.stanley@duke.edu
Find new perspective with a Mini Mental Makeover
Improve your well-being by attending a monthly Mini Mental Makeover webinar hosted by Duke’s Personal Assistance Service (PAS).
Open to all Duke employees, the Mini Mental Makeover is a live 30-minute Zoom session led by Senior PAS Counselor Laurie Kovens.
In the sessions, which are not recorded, participants are asked to describe their mood, then go through exercises clarifying needs, reasons for gratitude, the larger context of life and aspirations.
“Although you can practice Mini Mental Makeover on your own, the group allows you to see what you have in common with other people,” Kovens said. “And you can be reminded of the range of human experience, and you can inspire each other.”
Mini Mental Makeovers are at noon on the second Wednesday of each month. The next sessions are Oct. 9 and Nov. 13.
For more information, visit duke.is/MiniMentalMakeover
Finish 2024 strong by building professional skills
While 2024 may be winding down, it’s not too late to enhance your professional abilities with the help of Duke Learning & Organization Development (L&OD). During the rest of the year, L&OD, a unit in Duke Human
Resources, offers 23 professional development courses on leadership, communication, technology and more.
Among the courses available are Leading Through Generational Differences (Oct. 16), Resilience: Building Skills to Endure Hardship and Prevent Burnout (Nov. 18), and Managing Multiple Priorities (Dec. 9). Duke University School of Medicine Grants and Contracts Manager Cris Kopper said L&OD courses on communication, Microsoft Excel and supervisory skills have helped her immensely during her journey at Duke.
“Everyone should take a look at what they offer and take advantage of the resources that are out there,” Kopper said. “It will be worth your time.”
Learn more at hr.duke.edu/training
Save Oct. 26 for the Duke Football Employee Kickoff Celebration
Duke staff and faculty can cheer on the Blue Devils alongside their family, friends and colleagues at the annual Duke Football Employee Kickoff Celebration on Oct. 26 at Brooks Field in Wallace Wade Stadium.
Benefits eligible staff and faculty can reserve two free tickets and purchase two additional tickets at a discount rate of $5 each. Tickets provide access to a pre-game meal and kid-friendly activities.
Connie Brock, a Duke Neurology Clinical Nurse, has attended past Duke Football Employee Kickoff celebrations with her family.
“Giving my family the opportunity to come to a Duke game is big,” she said. “It’s a nice event to attend and feel proud to be at Duke. It’s just a fun day.”
Visit hr.duke.edu to reserve tickets.
Duke history, at your fingertips
What was the first facility to open on West Campus? Who were Bassett and Giles residence halls named for? Why is there an empty space on the front of Duke Chapel?
Learn the answers to these questions and many more through the new Duke Campus History Tour, which launched recently on the Duke Explore app. The tour was developed as part of Duke’s Centennial Celebration to provide a deeper understanding of Duke’s history for the Duke community as well as campus visitors.
Download the app on your phone for an engaging, informative introduction to key moments and people in the history of Duke University and Trinity College. The experience offers three separate tours— West Campus (with 10 stops), East Campus (eight stops) and Athletics (four stops). Users can select the tours that match their time and interests. Each stop or location provides a brief description, audio narration, photos and links to learn more. For users walking around campus, the app uses geolocation technology to guide the tour and signal the approach to the next stop. Users can also enjoy the tour from anywhere.
Audrey Gibson’s summer of 2024 was highlighted by an end-of-school party at Jordan Lake, driver’s education classes and a Green Day concert in Nashville.
In between were simpler joys like laps around her Apex neighborhood walking Zoey, her family’s energetic German Pinscher, and hours – maybe too many, she admits – on her phone, texting friends and swiping through Instagram videos.
“I’m very thankful I get to do these things,” said Audrey, 16, a junior at Apex Friendship High School.
Audrey, the daughter of Anna Gibson, a Duke University Grants & Contracts Administrator, had known for several years that she was born with a flawed heart. Scarred and weak, her heart kept her alive for 15 years before it failed last summer, giving her a special appreciation for every little thing that comes with being 16.
“Sometimes my brain disconnects from it, like when I hear about all of the stuff that happened to me, I’m like
‘Oh yeah, that did happen,’” Audrey said. “It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but it happened. Instead of pitying myself, I have to be like, ‘I’m grateful to be here. I’m grateful for all of the doctors, supporters, friends and nurses who helped me.’”
In 2023, Duke set a national record with 161 heart transplants, including Audrey’s remarkable case. Her journey highlights the dedication and expertise of Duke’s doctors, nurses, and coordinators, as well as the unwavering support from her family, friends, and caregivers who bolstered her spirit during a long recovery.
And with Duke’s employee medical coverage, the Gibson family avoided mountainous medical expenses. The final cost of Audrey’s transplant and hospitalization was roughly $3.9 million. The itemized breakdown of charges covered 288 pages. But with the family’s Duke Select medical plan, they only had a $600 copay.
“After everything, our lives haven’t changed,” Audrey’s mother said. “Audrey just has a heart that works and a better quality of life. If you have the support you need, you can get through anything and move on.”
Open Enrollment for Duke’s medical, dental, and vision plans, as well as health and dependent care reimbursement accounts, runs from Oct. 14 to Oct. 25, underscoring the importance of having comprehensive benefits. Reviewing your medical plans ensures that you or your loved ones are prepared in a time of crisis.
“You can’t predict what happens in life, so when our employees and their families face stressful situations, we want to ensure that resources are in place to help lessen their burden,” said Antwan Lofton, Vice President for Duke Human Resources. “When we make decisions about our benefits, we try to think of every possible scenario that could impact our employees’ lives. They’re not just employees, they’re part of our family,”
FEARS REALIZED
On Monday, Aug. 7, 2023, Audrey’s heart didn’t have much left.
Since January, Audrey felt weak and her mind seemed cloudy. Things got worse over the summer. She fought what she thought was a stomach illness during a trip to the Outer Banks. Later, while shopping for supplies for marching band camp, she collapsed.
The fainting spells and nausea continued for weeks, leading to multiple hospital stays, with doctors unsure of the cause, until that Monday night. Lethargic and unable to keep anything in her stomach, Audrey’s parents rushed her to Duke University Hospital, where cardiologist Dr. Michael Carboni determined the cause.
Audrey’s heart, a source of worry for years, was in the advanced stages of failure.
In 2018, doctors in Seattle, where the Gibsons lived, diagnosed Audrey with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). The condition makes the heart’s muscles thick and stiff, restricting pumping capacity. Since then, the Gibsons kept close watch on Audrey’s health.
For years, Anna ensured a portable defibrillator in a floral pink backpack went wherever Audrey did.
When the family moved to Apex, North Carolina, in 2019 for Audrey’s father’s job, they researched cardiologists
and found that Duke’s doctors, and medical benefits for employees, were considered among the nation’s best. Anna, who got Audrey to Duke doctors in 2019, joined Duke’s staff in 2022.
“I needed to work at Duke because the benefits were so much better,” she said. “I needed comprehensive benefits for Audrey. It was my hope when we moved here to get a job at Duke.”
Once in Duke’s care, genetic testing revealed Audrey had Danon disease, a rare condition that causes heart muscles to break down, requiring many patients to get heart transplants. She had an internal defibrillator implanted in her chest, helping her maintain a regular heart rate. With Audrey improving, Anna could leave the backpack with the defibrillator at home. Audrey’s heart, it seemed, could last a while longer.
But last August, Carboni explained that Audrey’s heart had given all it could. She needed a transplant quickly.
“We were not prepared for it,” said Audrey’s father, Arian Gibson. “Our mentality was, ‘Her heart’s not great, but it’s still functioning, right?’ Well, now it wasn’t.”
THE RIGHT HEART
Once hospitalized, Audrey’s top priority was buying enough time to find a new heart. Duke doctors tried 26 medications and three surgeries to attach pumping devices to keep her heart working. But two weeks in, hoses and pumps at Audrey’s bedside did the work of her heart and lungs.
Duke University Grants and Contracts Administrator Anna Gibson, right, found security in her medical coverage when her daughter, Audrey, needed a heart transplant last year.
Photo by Travis Stanley.
Expert care, strong medical insurance
Duke family in time of heart transplant crisis
During her roughly five-month stay in Duke University Hospital, Audrey Gibson had several comforting visits from the therapy dogs. Photo courtesy of the Gibson family.
Audrey Gibson is surrounded by family as she waits for a new heart in Duke University Hospital. Photo courtesy of the Gibson family.
Her parents alternated nights at Duke University Hospital. One parent kept vigil beside Audrey while the other made the drive home to Apex for a brief respite. The drive home was one that Audrey’s parents were convinced they would make again with her.
“Losing Audrey was just never an option. I knew a heart was coming,” Anna said.
Pediatric Heart Transplant Coordinator Kelly Iannello managed the quest for Audrey’s new heart. Given her vulnerable state, Audrey had priority to claim any donor heart that was deemed a potential match. But there was no guarantee of a quick match.
When donor hearts become available, a liaison service contacts members of Duke’s transplant team with information about their location, size and the donor’s age and health history. Duke doctors must quickly determine if a heart is a good match. If not, the heart is declined.
“All I can tell patients is that, when their heart comes, it will be the right heart for them,” Iannello said.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, Aug. 23 – nearly two weeks after Audrey was listed in the recipient registry – Dr. Carboni walked into Audrey’s hospital room wearing a sly grin.
“What are you guys doing this weekend?” he asked. Anna didn’t need to hear anything else and excitedly wrapped Dr. Carboni in a hug. A matching heart had been found.
Two days later, a Duke surgical resident boarded a private jet at Raleigh-Durham International Airport and zoomed into the clouds. A few hours later, the jet returned carrying Audrey’s new heart.
At that moment, Duke Pediatric Heart Surgeon Dr. Ziv Beckerman was prepping Audrey for the transplant. Over the next several hours, Beckerman removed Audrey’s old heart, which was still laden with metal pumps and tubes, and connected her arteries to her new heart.
“The heart we got her was terrific,” Beckerman said. “It got back to work immediately.”
In between phone updates from an operating room nurse, Audrey’s parents offered silent prayers at Duke University Chapel and played cards – specifically, hearts – in the hospital.
Sometime after midnight on Saturday, Aug. 26, Dr. Beckerman told Audrey’s parents that the transplant was successful and that the parents could go home.
Exhausted, the Gibsons traveled empty roads illuminated by a nearly full moon. Nearing their neighborhood, they glimpsed a cloud through the treetops. Illuminated by moonlight, it was shaped like a heart.
“We had to check with each other to make sure we both saw it,” Audrey’s father said. “And then we started bawling.”
THE ROAD BACK
Audrey had her new heart. She also had a long way to go. It took her two days to wake up and nearly a month for the mental fog from nearly three weeks of sedation to clear. Audrey lost over 30 pounds and needed tubes to eat, breathe and drain fluid from her chest. Her mother said Audrey was like a “frail little bird.”
To keep her body from rejecting her new heart, Audrey took medication that essentially shut off her immune system, leading to a series of infections, pancreatitis and pneumonia. The complications kept her in the Pediatric Cardiac Intensive Care Unit on Duke University Hospital Central Tower’s third floor for nearly five months.
Audrey’s parents remained fixtures in her hospital rooms.
Her mother worked out a reduced schedule with her manager, Alison Hriciga on the Campus Grant Contract Management Team, so she could be there for Audrey.
“We needed to help her hold it together,” Hriciga said.
Audrey had her spirits lifted when her younger brother, Alex, recorded a video of his band covering “Say it Ain’t So” by Weezer, Audrey’s favorite band. And in October, Apex Friendship High School’s marching band, the Patriot Regiment, visited the hospital to play a brief outdoor concert for Audrey, who watched from a wheelchair.
Audrey also leaned on Duke University Hospital’s Child and Adolescent Life team, a group of caregivers who tend to young patients’ mental and emotional well-being.
Child Life Specialist Rylee Neal bonded with Audrey while painting her nails – Audrey favored shades of aqua, magenta and yellow – or finding costume supplies for the unit’s Halloween celebration – Audrey was Velma from Scooby-Doo.
When frustrated with hospital life, Neal had Audrey write her feelings on paper and then helped her toss water balloons at each hand-written annoyance in a hospital courtyard.
“Seeing Audrey was the first thing on my to-do list because, selfishly, I wanted to spend time with her, but also, I knew she needed support,” Neal said.
Audrey enjoyed visits from music therapists, who helped her belt out songs on her baritone horn, and Cassie, a therapy dog that curled up in bed. She befriended fellow patients, especially a 14-year-old heart transplant recipient who is now one of her closest friends. Audrey recalls the two of them sitting in the unit’s lobby, sharing conversations about what they missed most about their lives back home.
“We didn’t talk about the future,” Audrey said. “We didn’t think that far. We were like, if we talk about it, we might jinx it.”
On Dec. 14, doctors deemed Audrey well enough to leave. That day, she joined her parents on their now-familiar drive back to Apex. For the next few weeks, Audrey struggled to walk upstairs and moved deliberately, a habit born of five months spent connected to machines. But she was thrilled to be home.
By February 2024, Audrey’s post-transplant quarantine ended. She returned to school and friends could once again visit the Gibson home, filling it with happy voices and a sense of normalcy.
Audrey still checks in with Dr. Carboni to see how her heart is functioning. But with the help of Duke’s caregivers and benefits, the crisis that rocked the Gibson family is just one chapter in a story that has many more to go.
“Everybody has their thing that happened to them. This is mine,” Audrey said. “It shaped who I am, but it’s not all of me.”
By Stephen Schramm
Open enrollment for medical benefits and reimbursement accounts effective January 1, 2025, begins Oct. 14 and ends Oct. 25.
There will be no increases in copays or deductibles for health, dental or vision plans, and there are no increases in premiums for dental or vision coverage. However, Duke’s 2025 monthly premiums for health insurance will increase between $4 and $22 per month for individual coverage, depending on the plan. The increase is in line with large national employers.
For Open Enrollment details, visit hr.duke.edu/enrollment2025.
From left to right, Cardiologist Dr. Michael Carboni, Pediatric Heart Transplant Coordinator Kelly Iannello, and Pediatric Heart Surgeon Dr. Ziv Beckerman played key roles in Audrey Gibson’s heart transplant.
Members of the Apex Friendship High School band, the Patriot Regiment, visited Audrey Gibson during her post-transplant hospitalization. Photo courtesy of the Gibson family.
Audrey Gibson, center, enjoying a moment in the sun with mother, Anna Gibson, left, and father Arian Gibson, right. Photo courtesy of the Gibson family.
More than a year after her transplant, Audrey Gibson savors moments of normalcy, such as afternoon walks with the family dog, Zoey. Photo by Travis Stanley.
1970-2003: Among the earliest RNA vaccines
Invented at W
Over the past century, innovators have made significant contributions in the marketplace and for public benefit
hen Robin Rasor first came to Duke as the Executive Director of what was then called the Office of Licensing and Ventures, she knew about its reputation as an innovative research institution. What she didn’t know was exactly what that meant in numbers. It’s more than she imagined.
In fiscal year 2023, licensing revenue from products and ideas generated at Duke reached $102.5 million, a single-year high. Those earnings are all distributed back to Duke inventors, labs, departments and schools.
“When I started in this business, I never thought we would see the level of revenues we see today,” Rasor said.
As part of its expanded services and resources, the office has been renamed the Office for Translation & Commercialization, and Rasor is now the Associate Vice President. In fiscal year 2023, the office received 325 invention disclosures and was issued 104 patents.
“To see their product actually cure a disease or make a difference in the environment or be a new process that makes something else better – that matters to our innovators,” Rasor said.
As Duke culminates its Centennial year celebration, here are a handful of inventions that have made a difference in the world.
1924-1969: A groundbreaking medical discovery
A headline for a 1938 article in the Durham Morning Herald proclaimed, “Duke Surgeon Describes Light that Purifies Air.”
The idea seemed preposterous: Light cleaning air? How?
Since 1936, J. Deryl Hart had been working to prove his groundbreaking theory: ultraviolet light tuned to specific wavelengths killed a common bacteria that was causing post-surgical infections at Duke Hospital.
Hart partnered with Westinghouse Corp. to make a lamp that would kill Staphylococcus aureus without giving the patient or provider a sunburn. Eight of the Westinghouse lamps were installed in a Duke operating room.
Post-surgical infections dropped precipitously with the use of the lights, and the UV lamps were adopted hospital wide. From 1936 to 1938, 800 operations were performed in the ultraviolet light, and Hart said the death rate in chest operations was cut from 5.5 to 2.9% while infections after breast operations dropped from 31 to 2.6%.
Hart was not only one of Duke’s most innovative surgeons – he also went on to become president of Duke University from 1960-63.
Smita Nair, an immunologist and Professor of Surgery, came to Duke in 1993 to study cancer therapeutics as a post-doctoral researcher in the lab of Eli Gilboa. In 1995, her colleague David Boczkowski handed her a test tube for her experiment testing a cell-based vaccine to treat cancer. It was labeled “The Cure.”
Nair laughed at the grandiose designation, but whatever was in that tube worked. That’s how the Duke lab discovered a cellbased RNA vaccine could work. It was among the first to do so.
“People were doing it, but there was not this frenzy around it,” Nair said.
“What we were able to show is RNA can be used to make a vaccine – in this case, a cell-based vaccine that controlled tumor growth in mice. … I do believe that a lot of our work laid the groundwork for RNA-based vaccines.”
From that work, Gilboa, Nair and Boczkowski founded Merix Bioscience, which became Argos Therapeutics, the first mRNA therapeutics company.
According to “Nature,” the discovery inspired the work of two researchers at BioNTech and CureVac, who went on to experiment with administering mRNA into the body directly. This, of course, led to the rapid development of the COVID vaccine in 2020.
2004-2023: Learning your true age
For most of her career, Duke Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Terrie Moffitt has been working on a longitudinal study that gathers biological data on 1,037 babies born in a single year in a New Zealand town. The study has recorded more than 50 years’ worth of biomarkers such as blood pressure, cardiovascular fitness, cholesterol and more.
A few years ago, she and her colleague, Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Avshalom Caspi, realized they were sitting on a trove of data and research.
The emerging field of geroscience had spawned the “longevity industry,” which measures a person’s biological age rather than chronological age. Knowing how biologically old a person is can zero in on behaviors that slow the pace of aging.
The product’s rapid success has been dizzying for Moffitt – especially after it was featured in a July 2024 episode of “The Kardashians.”
Each member of the Kardashian family took TruAge COMPLETE and revealed their results on the reality show’s season finale.
“On the one hand you can say that this is a cute party trick,”
Moffitt and her team developed an algorithm based on their data that they then converted to an epigenetic test. The test was licensed to TruDiagnostic, which now offers to measure your biological age for a prick of blood and $499.
Moffitt said. “Yeah, it’s kind of fun to send off your blood spot and get back your biological age – and then know that if you wanted, you could do something like buy a Peloton bicycle and then send it off again six months later and see if you’ve improved.
“But the question is, will it have any meaningful use in health care?” Moffitt is hopeful that one day it will.
2024: Creating meaningful treatments
In Soman Abraham’s career as a Professor in Pathology, with the past 27 years at Duke, he has found his most important research is the kind where he’s able to easily explain how A leads to B.
“To me, the more exciting part is not just making observations for the sake of academic curiosity,” said Abraham, “but, ‘Hey, how does that help?’” Abraham currently has three promising therapeutic strategies that could offer genuine help: a vaccination for recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs), a treatment for recurrent UTI-induced bladder pain that targets nerve growth, and an additive that boosts vaccine effectiveness.
He’s working with the Duke Office for Translation & Commercialization to find funding for more advanced trials on his research but knowing that there’s promise is what’s most important to him.
“It must have some meaning,” Abraham said. “It’s important to come down to earth and convey what you’re doing and demonstrate the importance to the average citizen.”
By Jodie Valade
Smita Nair, a Duke immunologist and Professor of Surgery, was among the first researchers to show that a cell-based RNA vaccine could work. Photo by Travis Stanley.
Duke Psychology and Neuroscience Professor Terrie Moffitt helped develop an algorithm that measures a person’s biological age rather than chronological age.
Photo by Travis Stanley.
Soman Abraham, a Duke Professor in Pathology, is working with the Duke Office for Translation & Commercialization to find funding for more advanced trials on his three therapeutic strategies. Photo by Travis Stanley.
A Seat in the Class
Audit a Duke University course for $100 per course credit
As a writer with Duke Health Marketing & Communications, Morgan deBlecourt relishes learning about the ground-breaking treatments and compassionate care delivered at Duke. She’s also curious about how that work fits into a complicated health care system.
So, every Thursday afternoon last fall, deBlecourt sat in a class at the Sanford School of Public Policy alongside Duke undergraduates for Public Policy 165: Introduction to the United States Health Care System.
“I wanted to know more about how everything works,” said deBlecourt, who enrolled as an auditor. “My job is to encourage people to seek quality health care, so what can I learn about health policy and health insurance and social determinates of health that can help me do that?”
With bright, engaging faculty and students, the classroom experience is what makes Duke University a world-class institution of learning. Employees may enroll as auditors in certain undergraduate courses. While auditors don’t receive academic credit and aren’t responsible for assignments or tests, they benefit by absorbing lessons, completing readings and contributing to discussions.
Sanford School of Public Policy Associate Research Professor Nathan Boucher, who taught the course deBlecourt attended, said auditors add valuable perspectives that might not otherwise be represented in class.
“It elevates the class discussion when people bring their wisdom and lived experience to the conversation,” he said. “The questions they ask are grounded in reality and practicalities. It really elevates the experience for everybody in the classroom, including myself.”
Auditing a course through Duke Learning Innovation & Lifetime Education requires obtaining the instructor’s permission, completing an online personal information form and paying a fee. Fall or spring semester course fees are $535 per course credit, though eligible Duke employees can audit many undergraduate courses in Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, and the Sanford School of Public Policy for $100 per course credit.
Manny Diaz’s Leap of Faith to Coaching
If Manny Diaz had really thought about it, considered all the pros and cons and possible ways he could fail, he probably would have never started down the path that has led him to his first season as Duke’s 23rd head football coach.
Applications to audit spring 2025 courses will be accepted from late November until Jan. 5, 2025.
“Learning is for a lifetime,” said Duke Learning Innovation & Lifetime Education’s Director of Academic Studies Kim Price.
“At an institution where teaching is what we do, having pathways for people to keep learning is very important.”
Price said foreign language courses, such as Chinese and Malagasy, are popular with auditors, though, due to demand, Spanish courses are unavailable for audit.
DeBlecourt finished last fall’s class at Sanford with a deeper understanding about the health care system. She learned how medical insurance evolved, how money flows through the system and the challenges of paying for late-life care, which inspired her to speak with her parents about their plans.
“This is such a great perk,” deBlecourt said. “It’s something that you only find at an academic institution like Duke.”
By Stephen Schramm
He never would have taken that initial step of leaving his job as a production assistant at ESPN in 1997. He never would have shown up in Tallahassee, Florida, with only a hope that a career as a football coach was a better fit for him.
“We often think, ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’” said Diaz, 50. “I don’t think we think enough, ‘What’s the best that can happen?’”
Diaz calls it “youthful naivety” now, but in retrospect, it was a bold move to leave what had long been his goal to work as a sports journalist. He attended Florida State University, where he was a communications major and sports editor of an alternative campus newspaper and traveled across the country to cover Seminoles football games.
His first job as a production assistant at ESPN in Bristol, Connecticut, meant cutting game highlights, logging films and talking with football analysts. Stephanie Druley, now ESPN’s Head of Content Operations, told the Miami Herald in 2019 that he was “very intense, very driven, even at that young age.”
But Diaz started to realize that it wasn’t the career he’d find fulfilling.
“You’re not quite inside the circle,” he said. “The closer I got, the more I got that feeling that I wanted to be inside that circle.”
So, at age 23 and with his wife, Stephanie, five months pregnant, Diaz moved to Florida with the hope that he could land a job that would propel his coaching career.
“Had I known what I was up against, if I had I known what the steps were, I doubt I would have taken them, because you would have realized how stacked the odds are against you,” Diaz said.
He started as a volunteer for Florida State, but by the end of 1997 season, FSU coaches trusted Diaz enough to break down opponents’ film. That led to an assistant position at NC State and eventually his first head coaching job at Miami, where he led the Hurricanes to three consecutive bowl appearances from 2019-21. Most recently, Diaz was defensive coordinator and linebackers coach for Penn State before accepting the Duke job and moving to Durham with his wife and three sons.
All because he took a chance.
“I think in a weird way, it helps just going and jumping without a parachute,” said Diaz, who has coached in 21 bowl games over his 26-year career. “Because logically, rationally it may not have made sense.”
After all, what’s the best that could happen?
By Jodie Valade
Cheer on the Blue Devils
The Duke Football Employee Kickoff Celebration is Oct. 26, when the Blue Devils play SMU at Brooks Field at Wallace Wade Stadium. Learn more: hr.duke.edu.
Morgan deBlecourt got to learn alongside Duke students while auditing a Sanford School of Public Policy class. Photo by Travis Stanley.
Diaz kicks off his first season as Duke’s 23rd head football coach
Manny Diaz says taking a chance led him to his first season as Duke’s 23rd head football coach. Photo courtesy of Duke Athletics.
Duke and Durham Tech
Partner to Train Next Generation of Nurses
Effort to address nursing shortage is part of workforce development goal
Longtime Duke nurse and Duke University Health System Nursing Program Manager Crystal Senter is driven by a desire to deliver patient care.
Last year, when she began teaching Durham Technical Community College nursing students, Senter found another calling. Whether mapping care plans with colorful whiteboard diagrams, leading lively class discussions about caring for mothers, infants, and patients facing mental illness, or sharing her own anecdotes, Senter treasures teaching tomorrow’s nurses. “I just love the students,” Senter said. “When you see the light bulbs turn on when they’re answering questions, it’s a great feeling. That’s what you’re looking for.”
Senter’s classes are part of a partnership between Duke University Health System, the Duke Office of Durham and Community Affairs and Durham Tech that addresses the nation’s shortage of trained nurses and supports college and career readiness through talent and workforce development. By 2025, the U.S. will have 78,618 fewer nurses than it needs. North Carolina’s demand for nurses is expected to outpace supply by 13% by 2035. Exacerbating the problem is a shortage of nursing instructors.
“As a state, this shortage creates a lot of issues, especially when you go beyond our health system and think about everyone who utilizes nurses,” said Debra Clark Jones, Duke Health Associate Vice President for Community Health. “Working with Durham Tech allows us to not only address our own shortages, but to improve community health.”
A Return to Ireland
With more than 400 care locations in North Carolina, Duke saw strengthening its relationship with Durham Tech – which offers an associate degree in nursing – as a way to boost the state’s nursing talent pool.
As part of the partnership, launched last year as a pilot, Duke nursing educators, such as Senter, are teaching Durham Tech courses. Duke has also increased opportunities for Durham Tech students to learn through clinical rotations at Duke’s hospitals and clinics.
“This is a huge contribution that helps us increase the capacity of students coming into the classroom,” said Melissa Ockert, Durham Tech’s Dean for Health and Wellness.
With experience in various care facilities, from senior living centers to prisons, Callie Caviness, 37, took Senter’s class on caring for babies and new mothers and appreciated how Senter connected classroom lessons to caregiving scenarios.
“With her real-life experience, she could correlate things we were learning with how things go in a clinical setting, which helped a lot,” said Caviness, who graduated from Durham Tech in May and is a nurse at Atrium Health Pineville.
While Senter understands the importance of closing nursing’s talent gap, her joy from helping students become fellow nurses is its own reward.
“At the end of the class, they were still trying to call me Mrs. Senter,” she said. “I was like ‘No, we’re peers. Call me Crystal.’”
By Stephen Schramm
While in the small island village in Ireland where her family traces its lineage to, Joan Oliver considered how everything since she started working as a nurse at Duke led her to that place at that moment in May 2024.
That was where Oliver would lay her mother, Peggy McIntyre, to rest after years spent caring for her, supported by the flexibility from her remote work schedule at Duke and grounded by her education from Duke Divinity School.
“Duke, to me, provides everything that you need to be successful in your life,” Oliver said. “You just have to figure out what you want and then use the resources to get to where you need to be.”
For Oliver, the greatest need came in early 2020 when her mother, then 85, suffered a stroke. McIntyre recovered physically, but she suffered from expressive aphasia. She could comprehend conversations and the world around her, but she had difficulty expressing herself verbally.
“Being the nurse, I knew everyone was thinking, ‘What are you going to do to help your mother?’” Oliver said.
Oliver moved her mother into her Durham home shortly after the stroke. Oliver had been working in Clinical Documentation Integrity for the Patient Revenue Management Organization since 2016. Along with her nursing training, a fully remote schedule allowed her to more easily balance caring for her mother’s needs.
It wasn’t long, however, before Oliver yearned for connection and introspection away from the burden of caregiving. Duke Divinity School’s certificate, “Theology, Medicine and Culture,” was a perfect outlet.
“Duke gave me the opportunity to occupy my mind in the evening,” said Oliver, who used Duke’s Employee Tuition Assistance Program to pay for the majority of her education.
“I think it added a deeper element for me to be reflective, and it opened up another way of me looking at things by bringing the Bible into it.”
Oliver’s son, Darry, offered help, too. Beginning in October 2021, Darry Oliver moved his grandmother into his apartment and cared for her until her death last year.
“We had a really excellent mental connection,” Darry Oliver said. “It was almost like we were married at the mind.” That connection led to Darry Oliver suggesting that they scatter McIntyre’s ashes near her family home in Achill Island, Ireland.
This May, Joan Oliver found herself at a cemetery near St. Patrick’s Church close to the home where her grandfather once lived. There, she distributed her mother’s ashes among her relatives’ graves and was grateful that Duke’s time off policies provided the flexibility for the trip.
“The biggest thing for me is really paying attention to the synchronicities that occur in life, about how, when I reflect back, everything was provided to me at the exact moment it needed to be provided to me,” Oliver said.
Another example awaited her when she returned home: Oliver was beginning a new position in Population Health Management and after years of dreaming of it, her son now is employed by Duke, too.
By Jodie Valade
Nurse Joan Oliver says Duke helped her when she needed it most
Duke University Health System Nursing Program Manager Crystal Senter teaches nursing students at Durham Technical Community College. Photo by Travis Stanley.
Joan Oliver, left with her mother, Peggy McIntyre, says Duke’s benefits provided time to care for her mom when she was ill, and time off to travel to McIntyre’s birthplace in Ireland, center and right, to distribute her ashes in May 2024. Photos courtesy of Joan Oliver.
Toward Racial Justice
Mural Symbolizes the Picture of Health Research
Three-year community initiative helps Duke bring more equity into clinical research
For three years, Durham community organizer
Dr. Michael Page met virtually with the Community Advisory Council of Duke’s Research Equity and Diversity Initiative to discuss making clinical research more equitable.
After all, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that Black Americans represent 13% of the U.S. population but 5% of clinical research participants. Black residents represent 34% of Durham County’s population but 23% of Duke’s clinical research participants.
The Community Advisory Council’s final meeting, held in-person this summer in Duke Research at Pickett’s community room, gave Page his first look at Duke’s Research Equity and Diversity Initiative’s unifying symbol:
A mural by artist Max Dowdle filled a 34-foot-long wall with lush reds, purples and blues, abstract figures and Durhamspecific imagery.
“It’s beautiful and so powerful,” said Page, Pastor of Antioch Baptist Church. “It’s so indicative of Durham and indicative of the work Duke is doing.”
Part of the Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and funded by a Duke Endowment grant, the Research Equity and Diversity Initiative, also known as READI, advanced health equity by strengthening connections between Duke and Durham communities underrepresented in clinical research.
Keisha Bentley-Edwards, Co-Director of CTSI’s Center for Equity in Research and the head of READI’s Community Engagement and Partnership Working Group, said demographic underrepresentation in research often leads to medications or interventions that don’t meet the needs of all patients.
“In a clinical or medical study, you should find out how something exists in the environments that people live in and
how people respond to it in everyday life,” BentleyEdwards said. “It should include the people who are most affected by the conditions you’re seeking to remedy.”
CTSI’s Community Engaged Research Initiative and Center for Equity in Research have long worked to address underrepresentation. READI was created in 2021 to help by generating lasting structures for strengthening community bonds.
Guided by input from the Community Advisory Council – which drew members from Durham churches, government and community nonprofits –READI helped researchers hone study plans, understand factors driving people’s reluctance to participate, and find community collaborators.
“This was great for researchers who don’t always have that opportunity to build direct relationships or connections, or be in the same spaces as these communities,” said CTSI Research Program Leader Kenisha Bethea, who helped guide READI’s work.
Over three years, READI funded three community-engaged research projects, shaped a community survey on Duke’s health care and research trustworthiness called Project Entrust, and helped develop My Duke Research, an online searchable directory of Duke clinical studies, trials and findings.
With READI’s three-year grant complete, much of the work will continue in other areas of CTSI.
And in the community room at Duke Research at Pickett Road – a facility created as an easy-to-access location for research participants – READI leaves a mural honoring Duke’s commitment to involve all of Durham in improving community health.
By Stephen Schramm
Pamper Your Pooch
– and Other Pet Care Perks
Dog walking, doggie day care or boarding and veterinarian services are among employee discounts
Afew years ago, the owners of the North Durham franchise of Camp Bow Wow, the dog day care and boarding facility, realized they needed to make a big change.
The facility’s 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. hours didn’t work well for many Duke University Health System employees, who needed to drop off their dogs for daycare before or after their shifts, which often started and ended at the same time, owner Mac Renfro said. And the dogs of Duke employees make up a significant number of campers.
Camp Bow Wow North Durham made an adjustment: It now opens at 6:30 a.m. and closes at 7:30 p.m. – specifically to accommodate employees who work shifts that start at 7 a.m. and end at 7 p.m.
“Duke University and its employees are vital to our community, and we’re pleased and grateful that we can provide a fun and safe place for their pups to play and stay while they’re at work or out of town,” Renfro said.
Staff and faculty get 10% off day care and boarding fees when showing a valid Duke ID – which is what Crystal Libby did when she started bringing her whippet Midas to the facility. Midas is a year and a half old, and still “a puppy in spirit, but full-grown in body,” Libby said.
Libby, who is the Duke Law Associate Dean for Finance and Administration, said Camp Bow Wow provides an outlet for Midas to run off some of his puppy energy.
“He always comes home and he’s ready to chill, so we know he’s had a good, fun day and enjoyed himself,” Libby said.
The whole experience has been so positive that Libby’s 17-year-old daughter Emma started working at Camp Bow Wow.
“She just loves it, too,” Libby said.
Other discounts offered to Duke pet owners are deals at Eno Animal Hospital, including $40 off your pet’s first exam and one free dose of flea and tick prevention, and 10% on dog walking and pet sitting visits from Raleigh Pawz. Employees can also get pet health insurance through Spot Pet Insurance at special rates up to 20% off.
By Jodie Valade
A colorful mural in the community room of the Duke Research at Pickett facility represents the enriched connection between Duke’s clinical research endeavors and the Durham community. Photo by Travis Stanley.
Crystal Libby, Duke Law Associate Dean for Finance and Administration, brings her whippet, Midas, to Camp Bow Wow North Durham so he can run off puppy energy in doggie day care. Above photo by Travis Stanley. Photo at left courtesy of Crystal Libby.
