When COVID-19 arrived on American shores and exploded across the country within a matter of weeks, researchers across Duke hastened into action. Duke scientists in fields from microbiology and molecular genetics to pediatrics and surgery are racing to try to understand this exceptionally complex virus and develop approaches to defeat it.
When facing an illness such as ALS, one in which there currently is no proven treatment to stop or reverse it, patients often look to clinical trials for options for living longer and better lives.
Kim Spancake and her husband, Drew Snider, understand the crucial importance of health care workers. When their 13-year-old daughter, Addie, was born, she was eight weeks early and only weighed two pounds, seven ounces. Addie spent six weeks at the Duke Regional Special Care Nursery (SCN), growing stronger and healthier under the care of the team there.
When Melissa F. Neumann, MD, and her husband, James Crichton, made a $150,000 pledge earlier this year to the Laszlo Ormandy Professorship Fund in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at Duke University School of Medicine, they did not know how fast their gift would change its purpose.
When artist Judith Snyderman, RN’64, Honorary Alumna’19, was in high school in Brooklyn, New York, her grandmother had a major stroke. One side of her body was disabled, and she was moved to a nursing home. Snyderman recalls vividly how caregivers transferred her grandmother from the bed to a wheelchair. “I remember her helplessness, and I wished I could help her,” she says.
jcc41@duke.edu
As students at Duke University School of Nursing, Lindsay Salisbury and Shelby Strockbine entered their third semester with a new perspective on the importance of global health and their roles as future nurses.
As teams throughout Duke’s hospitals, clinics, and research labs actively monitor and respond to the developing COVID-19 pandemic, Duke Health’s COVID-19 Response Fund to support the area of greatest need has received a generous gift from the Biogen Foundation.
On May 1, 2020, MIX 101.5 WRAL-FM hosted an on-air fundraiser and teamed up with local businesses 919-Fix-MyAC and The Carolina Ale House of Durham to bring 160 lunches to healthcare providers at Duke Children's.
Duke connections remain strong and community spirit shines through from the other side of the world. Donations of cash and surgical masks to Duke Health arrive quickly thanks to active network.
As a global logistics provider of equipment for major concerts, sporting events, television, and the film industry, Stephen O’Connell knows how to move things fast.