I’m Dr. Red Duke by Bryant Boutwell

Abstract

Reviewed by: I’m Dr. Red Duke by Bryant Boutwell Megan Seaholm I’m Dr. Red Duke. By Bryant Boutwell. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2018. Pp. 284. Photographs, notes, sources, index.) Bryant Boutwell has written an engaging biography of Texas surgeon Dr. Red Duke, a “one-of-a kind made-in-Texas original . . . the Marlboro Man, Albert Schweitzer, and Teddy Roosevelt all in one” (1). His life story is an account of dedication to service, ambition, and adventure that yielded a stunning list of awards. Boutwell provides a list of Duke’s accomplishments in his introduction. Among these are medical missionary to Afghanistan; creator of Memorial Hermann Life Flight, the first air ambulance service in Texas; conservationist; Alaska hunting guide; army [End Page 132] tank commander; and a television personality whose health reports were syndicated worldwide (2). Boutwell organizes his biography around episodes in Duke’s life. Along the way, he provides fascinating histories of developments in trauma medicine and the institutional histories of two of Texas’s finest medical centers, University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas and the University of Texas Medical School in Houston. Boutwell’s publication is the only book-length biography about Duke. Born in 1928 in the small railroad town of Ennis to James Henry Duke and Helen Donegan Duke, devout Baptists, he soon became known as “Red” because of his thick red hair. He spoke with a thick Texas drawl, and his speech was peppered with folksy expressions like “happy as a pig in slop” (101). In 1953, Duke matriculated at the new and growing Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and specialized in surgery. In 1963, he and a fellow resident attended to Texas Governor John Connally, who had been shot in the chest during the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas and rushed to Parkland Hospital. After serving on the Southwestern faculty, Duke moved to New York City to contribute to research in the Surgical Metabolism Unit at the Columbia University Medical Center. Two years later, he, his wife, and their four children moved to Afghanistan to serve on the faculty of a new medical school. His next and final move was back to Texas, where he joined the inaugural faculty of the University of Texas Medical School at Houston; he served there from 1972 until his death, at age 86, in 2015. Boutwell describes Duke as an inspirational teacher and role model for thousands of medical students, constantly reminding them that the patient was always the most important person in the room. He is remembered by many for his eighteen years presenting the televised program Texas Health Reports, which began as a production of the University of Texas. His signature closing was “from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, I’m Dr. Red Duke” (180). Boutwell is thorough, drawing on more than thirty interviews with Duke and his colleagues, friends, and family as well as diaries, letters and the public record. At times Boutwell’s detail felt a bit tedious, but it is descriptive of Duke’s character. For example, we learn that Red Duke went to seminary to please his father. His time with his wife and family must have been limited, but they were there for him at the end. They all gathered around his hospital bed, saying the Lord’s Prayer. Red provided a final “Amen” (238) before he died. [End Page 133] Megan Seaholm University of Texas at Austin Copyright © 2019 The Texas State Historical Association