Duke marks 50 years of gynecologic care; celebrates legacies of oncology doctors and nurses

In 1972, William T. Creasman established the Division of Gynecologic Oncology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology (OB-GYN) at Duke, becoming the division’s first chief. This coincided with Duke becoming an officially designated Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute, then under the leadership of William Shingleton (now deceased).

Four years before, Duke had already made its first big mark in the gynecologic oncology field.

In 1968, Charles B. Hammond, then a clinical associate, founded the Southeastern Regional Trophoblastic Disease Center at Duke, the first center of its kind in the region to combat gestational trophoblastic disease, the development of abnormal cells inside the uterus in the tissues surrounding the fertilized egg that can go on to form cancerous and benign tumors. Using what he learned at NIH, Duke gynecologists were able to offer patients chemotherapy treatment to prevent the malignant form of the disease from spreading.

Today, this rare disease is considered a curable condition.

“Probably the thing I’m most proud of is, I was lucky enough to go to the National Institutes of Health in the mid-60s at a time when malignancy was being treated that grew from the placenta, or the afterbirth — a universally fatal disease,” Hammond, who passed away in February 2021, said in a 2011 Duke Medicine (now Duke Health) video chronicling his career highlights. 

“Someone there had just made a discovery that showed it could be cured with drugs, and while I was there, we refined those drugs; expanded the cure rate to approach 100 percent. The fundamental idea of using drugs in that disease was a radical new one. It had been tried but really hadn’t been proven. And when I was there, we were able to try it on nearly 100 patients … and then expanded to the center here [at Duke]. It transformed a disease, one of the first diseases that was ever cured with chemotherapy. It was a very gratifying time. We didn’t cure everyone, particularly in those early years, and some patients, unfortunately, had complications of the treatment… that’s how we learned.”

Below are some early highlights from the timeline and photo gallery of Duke’s contributions to gynecologic oncology from 1972-2022:

• In 1972, the Division of Gynecologic Oncology in the Department of OB-GYN was founded under William T. Creasman (now at MUSC Women’s Care in South Carolina), the division’s first chief. This coincided with Duke becoming an officially designated Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute, then under the leadership of oncologist William Shingleton.
• William Creasman, who’d directed the division until 1986, led a Gynecologic Oncology Group (a national consortium of institutions and investigators) study that pioneered the development of surgical staging for uterine cancer, which included pelvic and aortic lymph node sampling. The results were published in Cancer in 1987. (Duke co-authors included C. Paul Morrow; Brian Bundy; Howard Homesely; James E. Graham; and Paul Heller.
• Jeffrey Marks and Andrew Berchuck, with Duke co-authors Andrew M Davidoff; Billie Joe Kerns; Peter A. Humphrey; John C. Pence; Richard K. Dodge; Daniel Clarke-Pearson; James Iglehart; and Robert C Bast Jr., reported for the first time on the role of overexpression and mutation of the TP53 gene in epithelial ovarian cancer. The findings were published in Cancer Research in 1991.
• Andrew Berchuck, along with Duke co-authors James Iglehart, (now at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and Jeffrey Marks were part of the research group that discovered that mutations in the BRCA1 gene is a driver of breast and ovarian cancers. Their findings were published in Science in 1994.

After a 30-year career in clinical cancer research nursing at Duke, Susan Boulton has announced her retirement, effective October 29 (2021).

In an email to research faculty and staff, Karen Kharasch, senior director of Research Strategy & Operations at Duke Cancer Institute, expressed DCI’s “deepest gratitude” to Boulton “for decades of dedicated service and safe, compassionate care throughout her various roles in nursing, research and management at the PRTBTC (Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center), the DCI, and throughout the health system.”

Known for advocating for her patients, her team, and the ethical management of clinical trials, Boulton currently serves as the associate director for Duke Cancer Institute’s Clinical Research and Business Operations Office. Before assuming this role in August 2018, she served for a year as interim assistant research practice manager for the DCI Breast Cancer Disease Group alongside her most recent role as ARPM for the PRTBTC.

In a lot of ways, Susan Blackwell (Crawford), MHS, PA-C’89, and the physician assistant profession have grown up together. They were born at roughly the same time, matured in parallel and proximity, and for more than three decades they’ve been inextricably linked.

Blackwell grew up on her family’s farm in Caswell County north of Durham. The PA profession was born just to the south, at Duke, founded in 1965 by cardiologist Eugene A. Stead, Jr.,, former chair of the Department of Medicine in the Duke University School of Medicine.

At the time, nurses and primary care physicians were in short supply, and Stead established a program to create a new position “to fill a gap between physician and nurse.” People in this new field, he said, would be trained in numerous areas of the medical profession. “We have chosen to call these individuals ‘physician-assistant’,” Stead wrote.

The program he created at Duke remains the best in the nation, perennially ranked No. 1 by U.S. News & World Report. Blackwell entered the program in 1987, graduated two years later, and has been a practicing PA at Duke ever since. This year — her 32nd on the job — the program honored her as the 2021 Distinguished PA Alumnus of the Year.

When she graduated in 1989, the Duke PA Program and the profession itself were gaining momentum. PAs were practicing in all specialties, and the profession — initially intended for men — had rapidly caught on with women.

But the field was still a long way from what it is today.

“I can tell you a lot of stories about the way that PA practice has changed in the last 35 years,” reflects Blackwell. “My profession has had to work pretty hard toward being recognized.”

Evelyn Morgan, for whom the Duke University Health System Friends of Nursing Program’s annual “Evelyn Morgan Award for Excellence in Oncology Nursing Practice” (since 1983) was named, passed away on Sept. 10 (2019) in Lilburn, Georgia. She was 96.

Born in Salisbury, North Carolina, in 1923, she would become the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center’s first Chief Oncology Nurse. She retired in 1988.

After graduating from Catawba College with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Ms. Morgan (as she was known by all who knew her) went on to earn a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a Master of Science in Nursing degree at Duke University School of Nursing, then did post-graduate work at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. She returned to Duke as a clinical nurse specialist in cancer research.

Ms. Morgan assembled a small group of nurses who worked to implement cancer treatment research protocols at the center. Through the years, she also helped train nurses who entered this new field for the first time.

After 32 years of compassionate service to the Duke University Health System, including the past 10 years as the Chief Human Resource Officer (CHRO) at Duke Cancer Institute, LeAnn Hinson has announced her retirement, effective October 31 (2021).

Previous to DCI, Hinson served DUHS as the CHRO for Clinical Laboratories and worked as a gynecologic oncology nurse. One of her favorite roles was serving as a Life Flight nurse and program manager.

“Being part of the Life Flight team and having the unique ability to fly into a situation and care for patients is something I’m most proud of,” said Hinson. “As CHRO, taking care of “my people” brought me joy.”