In January of 2020, Loren Robinson, MD’09, and the rest of the leadership at CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System, a 312-bed hospital in Texarkana, Texas, gathered to conduct an annual tabletop exercise in crisis management, mandated as part of the hospital’s regulatory requirements.

When Thom Mayer, MD’77, enrolled at Hanover College in Indiana on a football scholarship, he had no career aspirations in medicine. In fact, he had no career aspirations at all, beyond riding football as far as it could take him.

Congratulations to the 342 students from the Duke University School of Medicine who graduate this month. Despite a historically challenging year, faced with the COVID-19 pandemic and the ongoing impacts of social injustice, students pushed forward with hard work and dedication. We celebrate their many accomplishments and wish them the best in the years ahead.

Four senior faculty members at Duke including School of Medicine leaders have been named Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS). The recipients — all women — represent four of 252 total members elected this year.

Commentary by Dr. Kafui Dzirasa and colleagues, published in Science Magazine.

Dean Klotman narrates a video of highlights from the past year and offers her thanks for the commitment of faculty, staff and students to fulfilling the missions of excellence in patient care, research and discovery, education and community service.

Veteran Duke scientist and executive R. Sanders “Sandy” Williams has been named interim Vice President for Research and Innovation at Duke.

When reports early last winter indicated that a mysterious new infectious disease had broken out of its point of origin in Wuhan, China, Charles Lucore, MD’83, P’17, MBA, began to prepare for its possible arrival in New York. Lucore was one year into his new position as president of St. Francis Hospital, a highly rated hospital and cardiac care center on Long Island. Because New York is a hub of international travel, he anticipated the novel coronavirus would eventually show up.

Before Claire Aldridge, PhD’96, and her husband, Matt Burnside, took their daughter on a long-planned spring break trip to New York City, she checked travel guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, where she is associate vice president of commercialization and business development. The focus at the time was on surface transmission of the novel coronavirus: avoid touching doorknobs, wash your hands frequently, and don’t touch your face.