Winner of the 2009 McLendon-Thomas Award in the History of Medicine
Chris Dibble, a third-year MD/PhD student in the UNC School of Medicine, is the winner of the second annual
McLendon-Thomas Award in the History of Medicine essay competition sponsored by the Bullitt History of
Medicine Club. Funded by UNC alumni S. Gregory Boyd (MD '03, JD '04) and Laura Boyd (JD '02), the
McLendon-Thomas Award honors Dr. William McLendon and Dr. Colin Thomas, Jr. and recognizes scholarly
excellence in the history of health sciences.
Chris' winning essay was entitled, "The Dead Ringers: Medicine, Poe, and the Fear of Premature Burial," and
he will be delivering a presentation to the Bullitt Club on December 10, 2009. Chris was also the winner of the inaugural
McLendon-Thomas Award for his paper on Edward Trudeau Livingston's work on tuberculosis; a recording of his
Bullitt lecture on Livingston is available online, along with all other lectures for 2008-9.
The essay competition is now accepting submissions for the current academic year, and is open to all UNC-Chapel Hill
students in the health sciences: medicine, pharmacy, public health, dentistry, nursing, and allied medical sciences. The
deadline for submissions is April 1, 2010. For further information, please see the competition guidelines.
:: Greg and Laura Boyd live in New York City, where he is an attorney with Davis & Gilbert LLP and she is a legal
recruiter with SJL Attorney Search. Greg considers the history of medicine to be one of the most important aspects of
his medical education and and Drs. McClendon and Thomas among the best role models possible. They both strongly
believe that the history of medicine represents a critical perspective and focus on the art of medicine that are necessary
for training the best possible physicians, health care executives, and policy makers.
:: Dr. William W. McLendon served from 1973-1995 at UNC as Director of the Hospital Clinical Laboratories and as
Professor and Vice-Chair of Pathology. Since his retirement in 1995 he has been Professor Emeritus of Pathology and
Laboratory Medicine. An MD graduate of UNC in 1956, he and Bob Whitlock (MD '57) were the student
co-founders in 1954 of the Bullitt History of Medicine Club. Dr. McLendon is the co-author, along with the late Drs.
William Blythe and Floyd Denny, of the recently published Bettering the Health of the People: W. Reece Berryhill,
the UNC School of Medicine, and the North Carolina Good Health Movement.
:: Dr. Colin G. Thomas, Jr. joined the faculty of the UNC School of Medicine in 1952, and is currently Byah Thomason-
Sanford Doxey Professor of Surgery. From 1966-1984 he served as Chair of the Department of Surgery, and from
1984-1989 as Chief of the Division of General Surgery. Dr. Thomas was one of the early faculty members of the Bullitt
History of Medicine Club, and is the co-author, along with Mary Jane Kagarise, of the 1997 history, Legends and
Legacies: A Look Inside: Four Decades of Surgery at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,
1952-1993.
For more information on the Bullitt Club and other events for 2009-2010, please visit the Bullitt Club website.