Dr. William Anlyan’s career has spanned a period of extraordinary change in the practice of medicine. One of the leading figures in American academic medicine, Anlyan chronicles those transformations - and his role in them - in this forthright memoir. Born in Alexandria, Egypt, and schooled in the British tradition, Anlyan attended Yale University as an undergraduate and medical student before completing an internship and surgical residency at the relatively unknown medical school at Duke University. Anlyan then commenced an extraordinary career of service to Duke, first as a surgeon, then in a series of administrative posts at the medical school and hospital, and finally as Chancellor of Duke University. Anlyan describes a series of metamorphoses in his own life, in the world of medicine, in Durham, and at Duke. At the time of his prep school upbringing in Egypt, medicine was a matter of controlling infectious diseases like tuberculosis and polio. As he became an immigrant medical student and then a young surgeon, he observed vast advances in medical practice and changes in the financing of medical care. During his tenure at Duke, Durham transformed from a sleepy mill and tobacco town to the City of Medicine, a place where patients routinely travel for open-heart surgery, organ transplantation, and cutting-edge treatments for cancer and other diseases. Anlyan’s role in this transformation is manifest: he restructured the medical school and hospital, hired outstanding administrators, reworked the medical curriculum to better prepare students for a lifetime of learning, and worked tirelessly to fund modern new buildings to accommodate a world-class health care system. Anyone interested in health care, medical education, and the history of Duke University will find Anlyan’s memoir of interest.
