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This oral history interview was conducted with Dr. Rebecca Buckley on February 19, 2007 by Jessica Roseberry.
Duration: 01:23:00
Buckley discusses receiving her bachelor's degree at Duke; the difference between the men's college and the women's college at Duke; her growing interest in becoming a doctor; others' resistance to her going into medicine because she was female; experiences at University of North Carolina Medical School; her engagement and marriage; pregnancy and motherhood; pediatrics; allergy and immunology; encouragement from Dr. Susan Dees; the attractiveness of her specialty; remaining at Duke although passing the medical boards in Florida; the Department of Immunology; Dr. Bernard Amos; Dr. Susan Dees's contributions to Duke; severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID); bone marrow transplants for children with SCID through removal of donor T-cells, including its development and her own research on it; the success rates of transplants for SCID patients; the difficulty of determining how common SCID is due to lack of newborn screening; her advocacy for newborn screening for SCID; the expense of early screening of SCID versus nonscreening; the avenues for her advocacy for newborn screening; her desire for screening of other defects similar to SCID; her research on SCID chimeras (people with living parts from a another person inside them); transplantations done by fellows; the few women faculty at the time she began in Immunology; being the "token woman" on medical center committees; the realization in the 1970s that more and more women were applying to medical schools; joining the faculty in the Department of Pediatrics; becoming division chief of Allergy and Immunology in the Department of Pediatrics; the less lucrative nature of pediatrics; not meeting with resistance as division chief; not being a "women's libber"; other women on the faculty at Duke; her advice to young medical students; work-family balance; the commonalities between her husband's work and her work; her election to Institute of Medicine; the William G. Anlyan Lifetime Achievement Award; Dr. James D. Sidbury; Dr. Samuel Katz; Dr. Catherine Wilfert; changes in her field; changes at Duke; Buckley's Syndrome; the Duke Immune Deficiency Foundation Center of Excellence; tests for discovering immunodeficient patients; patients; and working with patients long term. The transcription of this interview was made possible by a grant from the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation. Includes 2 master CDs, 2 use CDs, and a transcript.