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Donna Allen Harris speaks about her background, primarily in Elizabeth City, North Carolina; the impetus for integrating the local high school being unknown to her; her being a part of the group that was going to integrate the local schools at various levels; the group dwindling to a small number, many of whom were in her family; her family's emphasis on education; her parents' insistence that she be part of the group to integrate the local high school as a sophomore; her desire to be with her friends instead; the difficulty of her three years at the high school; her memory of the first day walking into the school; the difficulty of the first few months and the first year; some of the actions of fellow students; the expectation from her community that she would do well academically; her loss of connection with her group of childhood friends because of the lack of contact; her sister integrating the junior high school; her being the only African-American student in her class; her desire to be alone sometimes as an adult as a result of that isolating experience; her being steered into nursing as one of the few options available to her; her satisfaction with nursing as a career; her feeling that the Duke University School of Nursing was training its graduates to go into nursing administration; her desire to be a hands-on nurse rather than to go into nursing administration; the ability of the Watts School of Nursing graduates to outfunction Duke University School of Nursing graduates in patient care; graduating in the same class as the Duke University School of Nursing dean, Dr. Catherine Gillis; sometimes feeling guilty about not going into nursing administration; her application to Fisk University and to the Duke University School of Nursing; her desire to go to Fisk to be with people more like her; her receiving a full scholarship to go to Duke; her choosing Duke for financial reasons, even though she knew she would once again be the first African-American; her sense of isolation at Duke; the other African-American students (university undergraduates) living on the other side of campus; her friendship with fellow nursing students in her class; those friendships being her solace; an incident in which she felt disappointed in a faculty member, after which she decided not to look to faculty members for support; receiving a wedding present from a faculty member; dating her future husband while being a nursing student; letting the friendship ties fall after graduation; going back to work at Duke; her previous declaration that she would not go back to Duke; her connection with friends but distrust of Duke as an institution; her nonparticipation in the 1969 student takeover of the Allen Building; her being a "middle-of-the-roader" as far as activism; her lack of memory about her sorority; not necessarily feeling community support at the time, but now not discounting that there might have been those who supported her; her first job after graduation from Duke and also being the only African-American RN there; how prepared she felt after her education at Duke; other jobs after graduation; her ultimate choice to go into public health nursing and it being a good fit for her; there not being much recognition of her being the first African-American nursing student to graduate from Duke; her blocking a lot of memories from nursing school; the 2007 Tea with Trailblazers being the first time she was really recognized for being the first African-American nursing student to graduate from Duke; now feeling a sense of accomplishment playing that role; and remembering those who have gone before her.

Durham Regional Hospital; Lincoln Hospital; merger with Watts Hospital.

Dr. Wicker speaks about her doctorate of adult education; thinking about Duke since leaving due to a restructuring layoff in 2000; her family background; her interest in becoming a nurse; attending Lincoln Hospital School of Nursing; diploma programs as prevalent at the time she received her education; the Lincoln program being available to African-Americans; the creativity within the Lincoln program since it was underfunded; the camaraderie in the program; Duke's involvement in the Lincoln program; working at Moses Cone Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina; working towards her master's degree at North Carolina Memorial Hospital; being a black registered nurse [RN] when most other black nurses were licensed practical nurses [LPNs] and most other RNs were white women; physicians noticing her after the white LPNs because she was black; this being the impetus for her to attain her bachelor's degree in nursing; attaining a master's in nursing supervision; approaching Wilma Minnear [director of nursing services at Duke Hospital] in 1973 for a position; teaching at North Carolina Central University for a year; working at Duke as supervisor of the Outpatient Department; being the first African-American nursing supervisor at the hospital; her deep interest in staff development; supervising nurse managers; expectation that the nurse was the handmaiden to the physician; Dr. Wicker as trying to counter that expectation in those whom she supervised; programs she initiated as supervisor of the Outpatient Department; discovering that she had hired two union plants; supervising in the emergency room; a challenging person she supervised in the emergency room; the emergency room as not her area of expertise; Wilma Minnear asking her to be the supervisor of nursing services for Duke Hospital South; her original hesitation at the offer because of her small children at home; the internship program where interns could work with nurses; overlap at times between nursing services and Duke School of Nursing; the restructuring of hospital administration after Wilma Minnear left; Duke Hospital South as having more black nursing administrators and supervisors than Duke Hospital North; rumors of discontent about nurses at Duke Hospital South, and that discontent being trivial; the retreat about the reorganization of Duke Hospital North and South nursing leadership in Williamsburg, Virginia.; being more dictated to than asked for her opinion at the retreat; being asked to choose an assistant, but being told that her decision was not correct; writing a letter after being told that she could not make this decision; black nurses as not being able to obtain positions; a blue ribbon committee looking into this problem; her letter to the blue ribbon committee; her interactions with the blue ribbon committee; her work in creating the Hospital Career Development program; transitioning into a career development role; her excitement in that program; new administration not valuing the program; her being given a pink slip; her processing being given a pink slip after all her years of contribution to Duke; other contributions she had made to Duke; having no contact with Duke until the invitation to participate in the oral history interview; things she has done since leaving Duke; working on the history of Lincoln Hospital project; that project not being completed; changes in nursing; Brenda Nevidjon; wanting to have a conversation with Dr. Ralph Snyderman before leaving but being denied that opportunity; positives and negatives of Duke culture.

Mr. McMahon's observations of Duke, managed care and healthcare in general; Deptartment of Health Administration.

This oral history interview was conducted with Dr. Deanna Adkins on February 12, 2024 by Caroline Overton as part of the Bass Connections Agents of Change Oral History Project.

Duration: 01:24:58 (stereo)

Duration: 01:24:51 (mono)

During the interview, Adkins discusses her childhood and family, her educational background, her interest in preventative healthcare, why she chose to become a doctor, her pathway into endocrinology, how she became involved in gender-affirming care, the 2015 founding of the Duke Child and Adolescent Gender Care Clinic, her interdisciplinary approach to gender-affirming care, her legal advocacy work, the effect of North Carolina House Bill 808, support from Duke, and her advocacy to ensure the Duke Hospital system is welcoming to LGBTQ+ patients. The themes of this interview include medical care for LGBTQ+, trans rights, and the relationship between medicine and advocacy.

Digital files include interview metadata and transcript (DOCX), interview with stereo (WAV), interview with mono (MP3), consent form (PDF), an image (JPG), and TXT files.

Dr. Nashold discusses his background, education, study of bacteriology, trying to discover poliovirus vaccine, neurosurgery, Montreal Neurosurgical Institute, coming to the South from Montreal, Bowman Gray, coming to Duke, first impressions of Duke, Dr. Barnes Woodhall, Dr. Guy Odom, changes in his research emphasis, stereotactic surgery, explanation of stereotactic surgery, history of stereotactic surgery, advantages of stereotactic surgery, equipment for stereotactic surgery, machine shop at Duke, impressions of Dr. Barnes Woodhall, surgical skill of Dr. Woodhall, height of Dr. Woodhall, forward-looking vision of Dr. Woodhall, Dr. Woodhall's impact on Duke University Medical Center, personality of Dr. Guy Odom, medical student interaction with Dr. Odom, medical student interaction with Dr. Woodhall, relationship between Department of Medicine and Department of Surgery, Dr. Eugene Stead, contributions of Dr. Stead, straightforwardness of Dr. Stead, strength of departments at Duke, Duke outreach to community, family atmosphere of medical center, atmosphere of freedom at medical center, introducing stereotactic surgery to Duke, development of Dorsal Root Entry Zone (DREZ) procedure, naming of DREZ procedure, types of patients needing DREZ procedure, caudalis DREZ patients, doing untried procedures on patients.

Dr. Wagner's career; Duke Cardiovascular Databank.