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t m c » p u l s e | m a r c h 2 0 1 9 24 I'm Dr. Red Duke An excerpt from Bryant Boutwell's biography The late James H. "Red" Duke Jr., M.D., was a Texas original. A trauma surgeon at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Memorial Hermann, Duke also launched Memorial Hermann's Life Flight program and appeared in a popular nationally syndicated television spot in the 1980s and '90s. In his recent book, I'm Dr. Red Duke, Bryant Boutwell, a former professor at UTHealth's McGovern Medical School, examines the man behind the legend. W orking with Red Duke always involved a few hidden sermons on patient follow-through and perseverance. More than a few of his surgical students remember his Duke-speak directive: "You take them, you raise them." For the students who responded to his stock question, "Who's the most important person in this OR?" by answering "the sur- geon" rather than "the patient," a reprimand that would make Red's irascible father proud was soon to follow. Linda Mobley, a veteran nurse who worked beside Red for years, recalls, "I'd see the new residents tell Dr. Duke that the surgeon was the most important person in the room and just cringe behind my mask as he spared no mercy reprimanding [them]. Working with Red was always, without compromise, giving your best and putting your patient first." In surgery Red could entertain, teach, and pontificate on the problems of the world without missing a beat on the procedure at hand. Country music might be playing and the atmosphere relaxed, but he was dead serious when it came to attention to detail. His Seldin training in internal medicine [Donald Seldin, M.D., was a mentor of Duke's] married to practiced skills with the scalpel gave him a reputation for saving patients oth- ers considered beyond hope. He could bark at a team member and call someone out in strong language when occasion arose, but generally he approached the teachable moment with a constructive message. Many veteran surgeons marveled at his ability to work long hours, far longer than most. One surgery stands out as his longest— fifty-four hours. "Yes, fifty-four hours without sleep." The procedure was not typical, fortu- nately. The victim was a deputy constable serving papers on a member of the criminal element in Houston when things went wrong. And somebody shot him right here with a shotgun [pointing to his belly