The Doctors' Doctor: E. A. Stead, Jr., M.D. (review)

The authors of this biography of Dr. E. A. Stead, Jr. knew their subject well and personally through long association in the Department of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Stead went by the name Gene, but his biographers, John Laszlo and Francis Neelon, recall that the residents in medicine at Duke surreptitiously referred to him as "Chief," "Big Daddy," or "Daddy Blue Eyes." Both Laszlo and Neelon had ample opportunity to witness these fond soubriquets. Laszlo was himself a resident in the Department of Medicine at Duke in 1959, coming by way of Harvard Medical School and the National Cancer Institute. Laszlo later became a faculty member in the Department of Medicine at Duke for nine years. His co-author, Neelon, also came to the faculty of medicine at Duke by way of Harvard Medical School and three years at the National Institute of Mental Health. He was the Chief Resident in Medicine at Duke (1969–1970) and remained a member of the faculty in the Department of Medicine until his retirement in 2002.

A large part of this biography covers Gene Stead's medical training and early career. His father was a strict religious fundamentalist, and his mother, a voracious reader, instilled a "deep love for books" in the hearts of her son and his two siblings (12). Emory University offered a scholarship to Gene because he was the male student who had the highest "scholastic average" in his high school class (17). Gene majored in biology and graduated in 1928; that fall he entered Emory Medical School, borrowing money from the Atlanta Rotary Club Scholarship Fund. Unlike 50% of his graduating class who immediately entered practice, Gene followed a remarkable path of training that took him through many of the leading institutions of his days. He first moved to Boston and devoted several years successively to training in internal medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, a laboratory fellowship with Henry Christian at Harvard, and an internship in surgery. In January 1936, he began as an Assistant Resident at the Cincinnati General Hospital and became Chief Resident in July. A year later, he returned to Boston as an Assistant in Medicine at Harvard and worked with Soma Weiss at the Thorndike Memorial Laboratory for two years. After Weiss became Chair of the Department of Medicine at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, he appointed Gene as division chief for cardiology. Stead also joined John Romano and Charles Janeway in a small private clinic at the hospital between 1939 and 1942, when Stead moved to Atlanta to become Chair of the Department of Medicine at Emory University. In late December 1946, Stead moved to Durham to become the new chair of Duke's Department of Medicine, exercising that role until his retirement in 1967.

Ten chapters provide abundant details about Stead's challenges and accomplishments as what Laszlo and Neelon identify as Duke's "first professional educator"—a label that Wilburt Davison, Duke's dean, might not accept (104). Included in the details are vivid descriptions of the slow-moving efforts to integrate the hospital racially, the development of a research program, political problems with the old guard, support for female residents, fabulous gatherings at the Steads' home, teaching rounds led by a chief who demanded excellence, the creation of Duke's Physician Assistant program, and Stead's intense devotion to both patients and students. During eleven months of each of his twenty years as chair, Stead led teaching rounds three mornings a week.

The book's first nineteen chapters are arranged in chronological order. The last six are topical, including stories about marriage and children, sections entitled "The Purpose of Life" and "Steady Thoughts," reflections about Stead's life by colleagues, and an assessment of Stead's legacy as a physician.

As an example of biography, this book is a hybrid. About 190 of its 336 pages are "primary source" quotes from...