Oral History Interview with Dr. Earl Trevathan


November 6, 2001
Interviewer: Ruth Moskop
Transcriber: Andrea Bristol
Updated by Mollie Frazier 3/28/2024

RM: My name is Ruth Moskop. I'm here at the Health Sciences Library at East Carolina University. Today is November 6, 2001, and I have the privilege of meeting with Dr. Earl Trevathan and Mrs. Ruth Trevathan for the purpose of recording an oral history interview. Dr. Trevathan, do we have your permission to record the interview?

Dr. T: Yes, you have my permission to record our conversation, this interview.

RM: Thank you. And it will be archived, transcribed, and archived as part of the manuscript collection at the Health Sciences Library. Is that alright with you?

Dr. T: Yes.

RM: Thank you very much. Ordinarily, as I explained to you, we start with your birthday during these interviews. But since we're working on a project about the history of the medical school, I thought maybe we'd start with that today. You've done a beautiful job writing some notes here, about your association with the medical school, before the medical school existed.

Dr. T: Yes.

RM: Tell me a little bit about that.

Dr. T: Well, we were here since 1954, there were about 25 doctors in town, and we saw the early hatching of the idea as it appeared in the community, especially through Dr. Jenkins on the campus. And, uh, we were in on the idea from the very beginning.

RM: What year was that again?

Dr. T: 54

RM: In 54

Dr. T: There were very few specialists at that time. The attraction to Greenville was the availability of a new Hill-Burton hospital. Many people might know what a Hill-Burton hospital was or even is. It was a hospital that received its, some of its funding through the Hill-Burton Act, a federal program that built hospitals where they were needed and under federal guidelines, they naturally were open hospitals. Most of the hospitals in the towns of Eastern NC were privately owned, so to practice in those areas was by invitation or by being a partner or a member of a particular group was the only route to follow. Whereas I could come to Greenville with proper credentials, and at a hospital and practice whether the doctor wanted me to or not.

And that, I think set Greenville apart from any other community in this part of the state, as a medical center because, an open hospital brought the first early specialists that began to dominate medicine after World War II. The physicians were able to go back on the GI Bill, and with other reasons, began to specialize. So, Greenville began to attract orthopedists, neurosurgeons, pathologists, psychiatrists, specialists that were not available in any other community. And even though we were one of the smaller communities, we didn't have the larger tobacco markets and the number of citizens that Wilson, Rocky Mount and Goldsboro had, we grew medically, because we were an open community. I've always said that little bit of government help, brought about a distinctive medical community. And from that, even Dr. Jenkins might have been inspired to say we could have a medical school here. I believe he did.

RM: That's an interesting bit of history. I had heard about the Hill-Burton hospital, but you explained it more succinctly than it had been before. Thank you very much. Yeah.

Well, you were, you came as a pediatrician.

Dr. T: Yes.

RM: Can you tell us who else was practicing?

Dr. T: Dr. [Frederick] Haar, and Dr. Malene Irons. Both were very busy, both well-known and well-loved doctors. Dr. Malene was a mother, had three growing boys, and her husband, who was a physician, so she had her hands full with her work and with so many patients who adored her and were flocking to her doorstep, that she was very happy to offer me as much practice as I wanted and do everything to really entice me to come to Greenville. And she was a very great help, getting me established here and supported, and has always been a dear friend and supported us from that time on. I owe a great deal of appreciation to the Irons family.

RM: Well, she speaks very highly of you!

Dr. T: Oh good. [laughs] It certainly would be mutual.

RM: And what about Dr. Haar? What do you remember about him?

Dr. T: Dr. Haar was an energetic hardworking man who put in more hours than any physician, practice physician I ever ran into and was dedicated to his work. He had been here since 1933, came here as a partner of one of the first pediatricians in this state, Dr. Tom Watson. And Dr. Harr had to go into service, left Dr. Watson working all of Eastern NC alone and that might have contributed to his early demise of a heart attack. So, Dr. Haar came back and took Dr. Watson's practice and practiced here until he was 87 years old. He died just before getting ready to go to work to make rounds. That's probably the way he wanted to go. He was a studied man and very, very conscientious about his work. And he made quite a contribution to this community.

RM: Where was his office?

Dr. T: His office was downtown in what at that time was called, the Old State Bank Building, up a rickety iron elevator that clanked as it went up the way. It had an operator that opened the grated door. And children would nearly have a heart attack and scream with fear just to get on that elevator 'cause they knew where they were headed. To that doctor's office and likely in fear and shock. And he practiced there until the bulldozers came by in the 1970s and flattened the building down, destroyed it. He moved about a block away, right on the edge of downtown and practiced there until his demise.

RM: And where did you set up practice?

Dr. T: In the old radio studio with plywood walls and Montgomery Ward paint, and the most basically inferior materials you could build with at the least dollar cost. Had very little budget in those days of opening a practice, just meant getting some space. We knew nothing about carpets, Terrazzo floors, or marbled tables or anything like that. We built them all with hammer and nails. We'd sharpen our own needles after hours so we could save money. And it was a tight and narrow budget. At that time, even the banks weren't very generous with loaning money, but the supply, drug supply companies were. So we could borrow from them and get enough equipment to get started. It took a little while for the banks to catch on that we were pretty responsible borrowers, and I think now a doctor can go out and get anything he wants. But in those days, it was very skimpy. Dr. Ray Minges helped me so much because he had already established his office in half of that old radio studio building on 5th street, near the hospital. That end of Greenville was undeveloped, and that new hospital had just been built out in this space where there were very few residents, and it was sort of the dead end of the city. But we were at that time the radio studio was out there and he had built his office there and left half of it for me if I wanted it. As a kindness to me, knowing I'm coming into town without much in the way of funds, he let me rent that place the first six months free.

RM: How wonderful!

Dr. T: And you look back on things like that and just have greatest appreciation for the kindness of people who helped you get going. That's what you call helping, you know?

RM: Oh yes.

Dr. T: So, that um, that was something I'll never forget. Even the first year with three-dollar office visits, I was very proud that I made in that six-month period of time, six thousand dollars. That was big money.

RM: Yes. [laughs] Still is. And it will be again.

RM: Well, that's fascinating. Do you remember some of the I guess the whole gamut of illnesses? What kind of problems did the children have when they came to you?

Dr. T: In 1954, believe it or not, we still saw tetanus, diphtheria, Typhoid fever, tuberculosis. Now they were the infectious diseases that we still had because everybody wasn't immunized. And they're nearly eradicated today. Well, I don't mean eradicated, but they certainly are conquered. And there were some of the. rheumatic fever was not uncommon, even though we're in a southern state. Rheumatic fever is more often in northern climates. Uh, so infectious diseases and malnutrition.We still saw cases of scurvy and other vitamin deficiencies, and a few other rare diseases I think are all gone now and conquered you might say.

RM: Did parents bring their kiddos in with colds?

Dr. T: Not often. There were more affluent people who, you know, asked you to come by their house to have the cold treated, which you didn't object to, because they were paying patients. You go see them at midnight if they wanted you to come. Uh, but it was that clientele that did seek preventive health care and routine check-ups. But fifty percent or sixty percent of the population did not seek that kind of help at all, except what they might have gotten then or later on at the health departments. And like it is today where there is some sought of pay for all services of pediatric offices. Many people could not afford and didn't come in until often times, it was towards the end of an illness or at the complications part of an illness. A trivial illness seen a week earlier would have prevented rheumatic fever, or a tonsil abscess, or sepsis, or some more, Bright's disease, or some rare, more difficult complications of a disease. We saw patient after patient at the end, where there were serious complications, just because they weren't seeking medical care until they had to.

RM: That's the best they could do though, didn't understand I suppose.

Dr. T: Well, that's the way it was. There was not only a financial dis-incentive, they really didn't have the dollars. But there was also sought of a mentality that there's not much you can do about it. God willed it or whatever and people just didn't sometimes just didn't go seek what help there was available. Uh, that was of course the tragic part.

RM: How frequently did you make house calls in the fifties?

Dr. T: Oh, as many as you could squeeze in. Often, after work or before work or during your lunch hour. Long days, because you not only were expected to be at the office certain hours, but you had to do everything in the hospital. There were no interns or residents to start the fluids or do the LPs or talk to the mothers. You did it all and as fast as you could go, you rush back to your office, you had a list of phone calls. And you'd ask your nurse to help you with this and with that and then see patients till you could finally get a break. You could go up to the neighborhood drug store and eat a quick sandwich and come back and go to work or make a house call. And then after five o'clock when the employees were very anxious to get away and go home and feed their families, you could make a couple of stops somewhere along the way. Often times, there was a call - "while you're coming home, please stop and see what this rash is or see Johnny, I think he's got an earache." Many times they were personal friends, so you'd do that.

RM: What a luxury! [laughs]

Dr. T: Yeah, what a luxury. And by then, you'd get home to a cold supper and your children had already gone to bed.

RM: Petered off!

Dr. T: Petered off, so. Certain times and certain days you didn't have much of the daddy and Ruth didn't have much of a husband. There were other days in which it was all going great.

RM: Yeah. Well, when you say long days, can you tell us about what time?

Dr. T: Well, our days would start at seven and might not finish until 10 or 11. You would finally get caught up where you could go back to the hospital and write up your day admissions and look at your lab work, and make some notes, chat with your friends in the emergency room, and maybe, get home for bed. And during one nights' sleep, you'd have at least two phone call interruptions, which somebody would want to know what to do with a hundred and four fever. You've done that. And it took some reassurance and some few appropriate questions to ascertain what a hundred and four really meant. The child was, hopefully nothing serious and most of the time it wasn't. But there were lots of telephone calls.

RM: And nowadays, we have sort of a person on call, and we contact, you know, through sort of clinic and remotely. We don't feel nearly so bad as somebody would have, you know, waking a person up who's already had a long day.

Dr. T: Yes, and we were not sensible enough to share each other's work. There's no way that could have worked. We were very much individual people. Dr. Harr would have never paired up with me to see my patients one night, and me the next. It took years for that to happen, even here in Greenville. There are reasons for that, but that is working better now for the patients I think and for the doctors certain.

RM: Well, I hope so.

Dr. T: Doctors certainly can now go days without interruptions and can live a very normal life, a more normal life. In those days, that was the way to do it, so we lived it, did it. We didn't know there was a better side of life, except to go back and study dermatology and then you can just see daytime patients only.

RM: What about the pathology situation? You said look at your lab work, take care of your lab work. How was that taken care of? You collect a specimen in your office.

Dr. T: Well, it's, most of the lab work that I'd be checking on would be hospital results. What did the white counts show? Does the urinalysis reveal infection and the throat culture reveal anything? Any of the other, blood serology tested out anything positive. For something like a spinal tap lab study, you hang by to get a quick report on that because you're looking for meningitis, something quite serious. But the lab reports would often help confirm your diagnosis and help you direct therapy.

RM: So, by the time--forgive my naiveté-- but by the time you came to Greenville when practicing pediatrics, you didn't have to look at any of the lab work yourself? That was what Dr. Malene told me and I think she was thinking back to her medical school days when she actually had to do some typing.

Dr. T: I, right, we did that in our office. I'd go look at the urine and my nurse could do the white blood count check hemoglobin and things like that. The hospital would do our major lab work. The results on the chart was what I was looking for or I could go by the lab to look at a smear and see if I could help to identify an organism to see what type of meningitis it was. And I could do that. We didn't have pathologists until 19 what? You know, 1966, 67.

RM: I don't know, who came?

Dr. T: Dr. Gilbert and Dr. West. Mm hmm Gilbert and West When they came, along with Dr. Al Hardy in neurosurgery, I think they contributed the movement of this community up to another scale. It took some risk taking to contract with the pathologists and pay their commissions of whatever size out of the hospitals' earnings, because it was not cheap. They took a big bite of money to bring them here, and, it had to come from somewhere. Because they were paid by the hospital, they had contracts with the laboratories.

RM: Well, that's fascinating. You have lots of insight into that development, that critical period there, when the specialists started to come to Greenville. What do you remember? While we're thinking about the hospital, what do you remember about the struggle to admit patients on the basis of their diagnosis as opposed to on the basis of the color of their skin?

Dr. T: hmm (silence)

RM: Did I throw you for a loop?

Dr. T: Well, let's see if I could read through that. You mean where they went into the hospital or whether they were admitted or not?

RM: Well, I just, uh, my understanding of the history is that, for, I'm not sure how many years, the people were admitted to Pitt County Memorial Hospital .and assigned to wards, based on the color of their skin.

Dr. T: We had segregated wards. We had segregated nurseries. We couldn't put a two pound Black infant near a two pound while infant, although the colors were the same at that age. And to do that would disrupt the whole structure of the hospital. The quake the crack in the wall would go all the way down to the administrator's office. And if you ask him what he was so scared of, it was the trustees. And who were the trustees scared of, people in town. They all didn't know who they were scared of, it was just a change in custom, and it had to be broken. That's a whole 'nother chapter that we've experienced all over this nation, I guess you might say. But in medicine it was broken very early because it seemed so unreasonable to think of discriminating against a two-pound infant, based on whatever.

RM: So, in the pediatric sector, there was a strong motivation to change.

Dr. T: Yes, it was ridiculous. You had your best nurses up with the white babies in the premature nursery. Not to put your sickest black baby up under their care with their equipment, because it was better than what might be downstairs, and they could do a better job, and save an infant. You didn't debate those issues. Why not? Because we could do more. Therefore, we're going to push something out of the way that's kept us from doing something better right now, with what we can do. And that's the color of your skin, that's no longer an issue. Back when you couldn't anything anyway, you know, what does it really matter? There was no penicillin, no isolettes, or no properly monitored oxygen, and no things that we were doing to help preemies. Just the Lords will, one will live and one didn't. So whether you're on the 1st floor is black and the 3rd floor is white, didn't matter. But later on something came alone that changed things and we could do better. Not only smarter doctors, but uh, resources that were better. And then pushed this black or white business out of the way and get to the patients.

RM: Do you remember when that, there was a story according to this, that Dr. Malene took a black infant and took it up and put it up in the isolette?

Dr. T: No, I did that.

RM: You did that?

Dr. T: Yes.

RM: Well, tell us about that.

Dr. T: Well, it's a situation. A very prominent black family had a premature baby here. They were community leaders, a principal in one of the schools, and librarian in one of the schools. Had a two-pound eight-ounce baby and they knew how to pressure you to do everything you could to save that baby. I mean, not that any mother or parent wouldn't have the same desire, these folks knew how to. So, they put a lot of pressure on me to save this child. They were older and they couldn't have babies. They had one son, so this was a miracle baby. Well, that kind of pushed me into breaking the rules and picking that baby up taking it upstairs where it could be put in recently purchased isolette. Air Shield isolette, Hatboro, Pennsylvania, which was the Cadillac of isolettes at that time, that had a very stable controlled environment to put this infant in. And we did that, and I think before the word got down to the administrator, and I got a phone call that the trustees just had not crossed that bridge yet and they just thought that was not the way they were going tolerate it until somebody made some changes or some such denial. Now, the baby was taken back down and put in a little Armstrong incubator. Well, I fussed about it, and it seemed so wrong, Dr. Malene, I told her about it. So, she put pressure on the administrator, and I think a few days later, a new isolette arrived. So, the baby would remain in the "black" nursery, at least placed in a state of the art isolette. The baby survived, was very bright and went on to become chairman of music at the University of Kansas.

RM: Oh, wonderful. So, a step in the right direction when he was born.

Dr. T: She

RM: She was born. Oh, that's exciting. A successful outcome, that's wonderful. How did you experience-- When you said you had a very busy practice, how did you become aware of the idea of the medical school?

Dr. T: Well, I never would've thought of it. Matter of fact, I would have voted it down. Matter of fact, I thought it was more boosterism, waste of taxpayers' money than it would have been going to Charlotte or Chapel Hill and just enlarged it a little bit more, saved a lot. But I learned a lot, during the ten years where all that idea was developing, and it did very early begin to make sense. It didn't make sense the way Jenkins went at it. He was going to get that the same way he was going to get us into uh Conference USA. He went things from a marine colonels' viewpoint. What I wanted is to look in his face and say, you don't get a medical school that way. But he didn't know how to say to no, but he knew how to pick the right people to do it. And that's why we got a medical school. At least he had sense enough to pick someone like Ed Monroe, who you can't fool, and who can be just as smart as you can. And he knew what had to be done. Jenkins got out of the way and listened. He'd be a spokesman and he'd go to Raleigh and the old boy clubs, where all the political power was, based out of eastern NC. Because nobody ever voted them out of office, they held every chairmanship. So, with all those good democrats that acted like republicans. But anyway, they too wanted things. Their ideas, desires were all good. I was very unsure at that time, whether they knew what it would take and whether it was worth it to go that route. But oh, have they been proven right? I think even the hierarchy at the University of North Carolina would say that, because they lost nothing, and yet they feared they would. In those days when you fought budgets so tight, and what it took to get everything going in Chapel Hill - to turn around and share it with a cousin down the highway. No way in the world could they favor that, knowing that they would probably lose. But they were wrong, they didn't lose. The state budgeted them adequately.

RM: And still does.

Dr. T: And still does. And the state budgeted this school adequately, and they did it first class. And that speaks to those people who made those proper decisions, like Bill Friday and others, who said well, if we're going to do it, we're going to do it right. And there is just no reason on earth for there ever to be continued friction or jealousy or dissention. The state has gone to seven, what, how many, seven million now, eight million?

RM: Growing, constantly.

Dr. T: That's right. I know and there will probably be another medical school in ten years. So that the issues been resolved. And the bitter combatants have died off, and the next generation ought to know is this is all here for a good cause, doing our job well, and glad it was here.

RM: Very well. What, how did your mind change? You said at first you were opposed to the idea. You thought it would be a poor use of taxpayers' money. And then gradually, how did you change your mind?

Dr. T: Well, the intervening decisions were very much approved of and that was to establish the School of Allied Health. And to do train some occupational therapists, medical librarians, physical therapists and so forth. We needed them and there was no argument about that. And they could bedone and trained out of the base from which this hospital, which this campus, East Carolina University was already geared to do. They could very well handle this sort of work. They could hardly handle a medical school and only one graduate of East Carolina had gone to medical school in the last ten to fifteen years, one person. We weren't down here training doctors at East Carolina, so it seemed like it wasn't quite the time to say "let's do it." We haven't done any building of the basic sciences, done all those things and gotten graduate programs started. To all of a sudden jump to the top and the top was the medical school. That was a big leap. Well, we begin to approach it in a very reasonable manner, and that is develop our allied health areas. And we put people like Ed Monroe in charge, and then we began to make efforts to start the medical school in the most basic way, and to "train doctors in North Carolina, who were North Carolinians, who had professed an interest in general medicine, family medicine or non-specialist areas." All of those are statements of intent, missions of the school you couldn't deny. That's what we wanted. I never was sure that was what would be fulfilled, and I think I've been proved right on that because I think we turned out just as many neurosurgeons as Carolina does. Matter of fact, some of these country boys seem to be the first to go the other way, but at the same time, many of them haven't gone back and practiced general medicine. And now there was one time we did have a pretty high percentage, seventeen percent, that would go into general medicine, family medicine, which was pretty good. But I think right now we probably don't do much better than the other school, even though that's our mission. We did certainly bring more minority race individuals, and that's been a great step. It's proven pretty successful I think, qualified black students. So, I think by and large I came around over time as the first-year school's class was established, transferring to Chapel Hill. And during the fight of three or four years, there in the early seventies, it was finally resolved that the conclusion would be is we'd have eventually, a four-year school. Now, let's go ahead with what we need. We then voted a nine-million-dollar bond issue, citizens of Pitt County to build a two hundred and fifty bed hospital. It's over there now. And that was an effort, and that hospital served as a nucleus for you getting a medical complex. Then we begin to bring in some very astute faculty members, who were excited about starting on the ground floor and building the school. Then we bought in a man in the genius of Bill Laupus, who just, I think helped Ed Monroe perform his miracle. Maybe together, but they both had different roles, played them well. And, then the state of North Carolina budgeted the fifty million to build the Brody building, the largest initial budget of any medical school in the country. That little eastern Virginia medical school started off with half of that. East Tennessee started off with half or third of that. But North Carolina did it right, and Bill Friday said "you do it right or not all." So, we started right and built a nice facility.

RM: That's wonderful

Dr. T: Nice library.

RM: Right here.

Dr. T: That's right. So, by nineteen, what, seventy-eight or nine, we had

RM: Nineteen seventy-eight, we had our

Dr. T: first graduate.

RM: Well, our first Four-year students

Dr. T: Right, and then by eighty

RM: eighty-one

Dr. T: Eighty-one, there you go. Well, it was of course then hard to oppose it. I think that was a process of acceptance, that begin incrementally through all those ten or fifteen years.

RM: Well, Dr. Monroe said that you had a great deal to do with bringing the medical school here, with letting it, seeing it come to fruition. You were supportive in some way. What'd you think he was talking about?

Dr. T: I was supportive of Ed Monroe. And I was agreeing with steps that were taken. So, I was optimistic eventually. I was just not sure early in the game that I could have gotten on a bandwagon to push through a medical school in Greenville. And I don't think I was too unusual. I don't know how many other physicians in the area would share my sentiments, but I guess quite a few wondered if it could be done and whether it shouldn't be done. Cause all of us felt the medical school was something special. I knew it wasn't a school of music. I knew it wasn't a school of dentistry or a school of pharmacy, or a school of, a law school. I just thought a medical school was enormously complex, and exceedingly expensive.

RM: It is.

Dr. T: That's right and it's proven to be. So, the economy has had to rise to the challenge of providing enough balance and enough medical costs for us to have all of this. So, when you pay your taxes, just say thank yourself. You'd better because you took a big bite. And we're you know, and therefore, you took the reality is beginning to show is that we could do it, it was going to be done right before you were really on the bandwagon. I supported every step of the way. I was on the dean's selection committee, which, gave me a lot of insight into how much effort was made to find the right person for this school. And uh.

RM: Let me turn the tape over Dr. Trevathan. I don't want to miss any of your thoughts.

[Dr. T, RM and Mrs. T joking and laughing as they prepare to get back to the interview.]

RM: Well, tell me Dr. Trevathan, before Greenville had a strong medical center with specialist, did you need to send pediatric patients away to other institutions for specialized healthcare?

Dr. T: Yes, we had some individuals who were good referral sources, who were trained though as general pediatricians and could help us with complex cases of which we weren't sure what we were dealing with. And, uh we made many referrals to Durham and to Chapel Hill. Chapel Hill was not very strong initially and I wasn't sure that I knew the people there that I eventually knew. Although they had some great people proved to. I aligned myself very early with some very good friends at Duke and these individuals were a tremendous resource. Not only take your patients, but they'd also help you on the telephone. They'd suggest something. You know, I've got this child that's doing this, and I've just never seen this quite like this. Would have you go ahead and get this test and see what it shows. They would help you in a diagnosis and if it was an urgent thing, they had to see right away or didn't know what we were talking about either or that's going to need care that we couldn't provide, then that individual would go to Durham, and often, only a white child, only a white ambulance, from a white funeral home. The black child could not go to Durham on the white ambulance from the white funeral home but would have to go on a black funeral home's ambulance. We had to deal with that stupidity for a while.

RM: The funeral, what was the connection between the funeral home and the ambulances?

Dr. T: They had the ambulances. There were no public ambulance. Greenville didn't have ambulances sitting around in the fire department. What are you talking about? It's a new generation, a new thing. We weren't New York City. Emergency health care, all that's a new thing and it's another generation. Well, we had a child stretched out, getting IV fluids, get an airway in and somebody squeezing the bag so it could breathe, and we've got to get them to Durham. You've got to put them on an ambulance. And that would be out of the hearse fleet, or whatever and they'd go whirling off to Duke hospital, pulling in with this patient. But if it was black, the funeral home would have to be black also.

RM: Goodness. We've come a ways.

Mrs. T: Yeah, we sure have come a ways.

RM: We've come a ways.

Dr. T: Now the sensitive and caring operators of the funeral home understood that. That wasn't done with triviality. They would tell me, "We do have a custom that's working very well. The black ambulances would take your patient if it's black. The white ambulances would take it if it's white. I had to learn all of that. Again, even my days of living here in a segregated world, was offended by it and I thought it was so stupid. I guess everybody did and then that eventually vanished, and it was resolved very easily. It helped force the issue of a hospital having ambulances and emergency service. Cause a funeral home could lose money. They couldn't ask, "can you pay me?" It was a gift on their part.

RM: My goodness. They provided a service then.

Dr. T: Emergency, just like my services were. I didn't ask a child if she could pay me. Pediatricians don't do that. That's why I went into pediatrics.

RM: Yeah. Yeah. Well, did gradually the situation changed, I suppose?

Dr. T: Well, yes. All of these things evolved over those, but they happened to be experiences of my early practice and that's what you're asking me about. Not many people are going to come in and go through that from the hereafter, a day when they didn't know and there wasn't an ambulance, and wasn't a resident in the hospital, or wasn't an open-door policy, or when everything wasn't available.

RM: That's right.

Dr. T: That's right. But you got to know there was other there otherwise. And we just wasn't a cruel society at that time. We had all kind of charitable hearts and systems that we hoped would cover the situation and that's just one of the little stupid things we had to do.

RM: There've been stories about how, before the medical center was here, a white, well, person or child would go to Durham to have his tonsils out, whereas the black kids would either go without or stay here and have it done.

Dr. T: Hm.I thought maybe that was more economics then cause the poor white child would stay here too. That wasn't a color situation. Even today, there are people here in Greenville that will go to Mayo Clinic for a tonsillectomy before they'd come here. You find them all around, but everybody is buying into something that they think they can afford and want. That's just the way we are in good open society. But there were people who wanted the opinion of a physician or wanted the opinion of a physician they knew in Richmond. That was easy to provide or John's Hopkins. Maybe they knew things that would help us make referrals to John's Hopkins, because they had researched or had a grandfather who was a doctor who knew Dr. Clark at John's Hopkins. Or we could make referrals anywhere. We don't have to do much of that now.

RM: Now we have all sorts of luxuries right here.

Dr. T: Right here. Right down the block.

RM: What kind of interactions would you have, or did you have any when you were with the health department?

Dr. T: A great deal. A great deal. I enjoyed public health and I enjoyed the health director. And working with children, half of them got all of their healthcare through the health department, so we had to be in partnership. Which a lot of doctors resented; I never did. I thought the health department, even today, performs a tremendous service for which they very little or no credit. I mean that'd be the last resource most people would think of when they think of healthcare. Whereas it probably should be up near the top. But I worked closely with the health departments; I helped them start their clinics, clinic, or clinics. I had a cardiology clinic and Dr. Ed Monroe and I ran it for years. I saw the children; he saw the adults. Thirty-five dollars an hour; big money. I think it was less than that when we started. And later, it was through public health grants, that I went back and did neurology, in nineteen sixty-six, pediatric neurology. Because we had no pediatric neurology in this area of the world. So, we started a neurology clinic down here and had Chapel Hill neurologist come down and work it with me and we'd see 40-50 patients on once-a-month clinic. They got superb care. And uh, that year away studying pediatric neurology on a public health scholarship certainly enamored me to public health, for what they've done for me, and I worked public health clinics in Elizabeth City and Columbia and Williamston and Windsor, since the nineteen sixties.

RM: That's a long way away Earl.

Dr. T: Yeah, my office established these outpatient clinics through the health departments because they had nobody that saw children in Columbia or Windsor, or later in Elizabeth City in neurology. And our office did that, and although it was a tremendous sacrifice for private pediatricians to do that on prior earnings, where we could keep office going.

RM: Well, when you say our office did it?

Dr. T: Greenville Pediatrics, private practice office did that for years. Later the medical school took those things over. But we did them before the medical school got here. Outreach work clinics. You know, if you think Greenville needed things, what do you think Windsor needed?

RM: Much more.

Dr. T: That's right, much more. So, we could go to a clinic in Windsor and see a lot of these little children the nurses had picked up in school and seen in their check-up clinics, and all that. Those hard-working front-line people, called public health nurses, and would give anything in the world to have Dr. X, in this case, Dr. Tevathan or Dr. Chaplain, who's standing there saying; what should I do or what is this? That was a tremendous service.

RM: That must have been an interesting conversation that the Greenville Pediatrics had with the medical school when that happened. How did that--?

Dr. T: Well, I think by that time the private practice group, Greenville Pediatrics, saw no need of that if we had all these residents that should be going out with a doctor and got on and see those patients and get good training experience. It was another resource for clinical work for students. So, for years and years we initially took the students out with us. Then later on when we got a little bit bigger house staff, could spare a resident or a faculty person, those clinics were serviced by that group. Now I don't know exactly what is going on now. Many of the specialists have established clinics and private offices and in health departments all over eastern Carolina. The neurology group here that have their own private office, seven or eight of them, have satellite operations all around, Ahoskie. You know, all that's changed, but the outreach idea is continuing that way.

RM: When did you become a faculty member at East Carolina?

Dr. T: Seventy-eight.

RM: In seventy-eight. Well, with the first class.

Dr. T: Yes.

RM: When did we start a pediatric residency in that same year?

Dr. T: Oh yes. When I came over, we had three residents. And that was a help, but we knew we had a long, uphill struggle to build on. And we had, every now and then, we had some very good residents that stuck around, look at Angela Stewart, for one of them. She was one of the earliest, that not only stuck around, but stayed very active in what they were trained to do in pediatrics, remained quite a contributor.

RM: Angela's developed a whole childcare facility.

Dr. T: Yeah.

RM: Well children, sick children, daycare out there. Very well thought of.

Dr. T: She's one of our earliest residents.

RM: I'd like to talk with her someday too, hopefully include her in the heritage hallway. Well, should we stop our interview for today? Or would you like to talk a little bit more about some of the materials?

Dr. T: Well, if you think it's just a good break off point, do so. Cause I really don't want to rush or cry out or anything. I'm sure we'll have time to come back again. I kind of enjoy it. I don't know what that means.

RM: Well, I enjoyed very much as well.

Dr. T: Reflecting is sort of a passion of an older person, and I hate to think I going to get older and want to talk more. But this is a chance where you do it and are invited to.

RM: Well, you speak very eloquently. And it's a delight to listen. Well, if you've still got some energy and I can see that you do, tell me about this doctor. Let's see, you were at a party, a Christmas party in the mid-sixties, and Dr. Jenkins cornered you and a couple of other doctors, asked what you thought about establishing a school, a medical school, here at East Carolina College.

Dr. T: You can't imagine what I thought. I think I repeated it a few minutes ago, but I just thought that was another one of Dr. Jenkins' wild hairs. Cause I knew at that time that he had gone to tremendous effort to pick up the pieces of the old Dixie Classic, which folded in Raleigh after some scandal. Which was the most successful basketball tournament we've ever had in this corner of the world, during the Christmas holidays. And he wanted to capture on that and take the same idea, bring it here and start a holiday basketball clinic. So, the first thing he did was run around town and buttonhole a lot of sports enthusiasts for dollars. And they made some right big contributions to make the purse adequate to pay teams to come here. And the first year, it'd start off with a big bang, then the next year it was hard to get anybody, and a year or two later it folded. But nevertheless, give Jenkins credit for trying, though it didn't work. And he started a nursing school with the same kind of idea, without much preparation. And I went to Raleigh with Dr. Jenkins and Dr. Fred Irons. Dr. Fred Irons was infirmary director and Dr. Trevathan as president of the medical society. And we sat before a nursing board up there and got our bottom sides whipped with a slew of questions that we didn't know the answers to and showed that we weren't really prepared for a nursing school.

RM: Nevertheless, one happened. And it was about ten years before the medical school, I believe. Yeah.

Dr. T: And Dr. Jenkins came back home with that comeuppance and took the minutes and the needs before his board of trustees and before his faculty and he got things fixed. He created the base for the nursing school, and he went back a year or two later, having done the things that needed to be done. The nursing school was established and the dean of nursing. And it was in a few years we had students who scored the highest in the entire state in nursing scores. And the nursing school was a tremendous success. Well anyway, athletics, music, the arts, the nursing school; why not the medical school? You could see Jenkins' growth intentions.

RM: Building an empire.

Dr. T: Building an empire, that's right. And therefore, when he came up with the idea of a medical school, I said whew, man is he riding a tiger now. But don't underestimate Dr. Jenkins.

RM: Well, he had your help with the nursing school, so I guess he thought you'd jump right onboard with the medical school idea.

Dr. T: Well, he never knew otherwise or thought otherwise, but we all said, what a minute now. We'd jump when there was something to jump on, but just the idea of doing it would not get very far. And if you notice, he always gives credit to Dr. Ferguson from Plymouth, Dr. Ernest Ferguson from Plymouth and Dr., the orthopedist from Duke, Baker, Lenox Baker. They were two of his buddies who were personalities were a lot like Jenkins, and they told me to go for it, to do it. They were men of significant credentials. So, he spoke to his colleagues, spoke to his representatives in the General Assembly, that Dr. Lenox Baker said it could be done. They listened. He deferred the idea from himself to them, and that was smart. But he used the big man. Now, it's good name drop when you speak of someone like Dr. Lenox Baker. That's about like saying Dr. [?]? said it would work.

RM: In North Carolina

Dr. T: In North Carolina

RM: Oh, that's a wonderful story. Yeah. Well, I heard recently. I can't remember who shared with me that, at Dr. Ferguson's funeral, they actually put some earth from the school of medicine campus into his grave as a-

[burst of laughter with Dr. and Mrs. T.]

I wish I could capture your response on the tape. Oh goodness. Well, let me read over your notes and we'll take up again next time.

Dr. T: Yeah, that's fine.

RM: Thank you very much.

[End of Recording]


Title
Oral History Interview with Dr. Earl Trevathan
Description
Dr. Earl Trevathon was a pediatrician in Greenville, North Carolina. In this interview, Dr. Trevathan discusses the history of health care in eastern North Carolina, the difficulties that arose when East Carolina University first attempted to create the medical school, and how general health care has advanced in the last fifty years. Topics mentioned in this interview are relevant to the years 1954 to 2001. Approximately 84 minutes.
Date
November 06, 2001
Original Format
oral histories
Extent
Local Identifier
LL02.03.36.02
Creator(s)
Contributor(s)
Subject(s)
Spatial
Location of Original
Laupus Library History Collections
Rights
This item has been made available for use in research, teaching, and private study. Researchers are responsible for using these materials in accordance with Title 17 of the United States Code and any other applicable statutes. If you are the creator or copyright holder of this item and would like it removed, please contact us at als_digitalcollections@ecu.edu.
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https://digital.lib.ecu.edu/60339
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