Page 45 - Delaware Medical Journal - January/February 2019
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I C C CN A A MS S E E E E MR R OE E RP P P O OI A R R MT T
Major General William H. Duncan, MD (1930–2018)
Stephen R. Permut, MD, JD
Was he Doctor-General or General-Doctor? You could never really be quite sure, but in either capacity, when William H. Duncan spoke, everyone listened. He wanted to be a soldier; his mother wanted him to be a physician.
A year at the University of Delaware, and then he was off to West Point. He served his active duty in Korea, and whenever things were always in deep kimchi.” After serving in Korea, Bill returned to attend medical school at Temple University. During his education, he supported himself and later his family by washing dishes and waiting tables at the University of Delaware and by delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service during breaks in medical school.
He served his internship at the Delaware Hospital and then opened his practice in full-scope family medicine (including OB) on the north side of Wilmington. Then, administrative medicine called him. Through most
of his medical career, he was active in the Delaware National Guard, eventually becoming its commanding general. During the riots in the 1960s, he patrolled the streets of Wilmington and enforced the curfew. His reputation for leadership was so remarkable that he was appointed to several presidential committees.
His administrative career led him to become the Vice
President for Ambulatory Services for Christiana
Care (then Wilmington Medical Center). In that
capacity, he accomplished what so many hospital administrators have been unable to do, and that was to blend the cultures of disparate hospitals, in this case the Delaware, Memorial, and Wilmington General Hospitals, which merged to become what is now Christiana Care Health Services.
Subsequently, Bill was lured to St. Francis Hospital to become
able to give physicians a real voice in hospital operations. He was always supportive of the challenges facing practicing physicians and fostered medical education at the student, resident, and practicing physician level. It was Bill who convinced Temple University
to Temple led to his election not only as President of the Medical Alumni Association but also as President of the Temple University General Alumni Association. Virtually no one becomes the president of a university’s alumni association who was not an undergraduate
Lessons learned from the Doctor-General: stay out of “deep kimchi” and “only touch a piece of paper once.”
So much for the General, family physician, and medical administrator. What about the real estate baron and cabinet maker?
I think at one time I counted him owning four personal residences
in New Castle County, not to mention one in the Poconos. There are two that are most interesting. One is the cottage at Bay View and how he came to buy it. Apparently, the former owner of the cottage, through a blind call, wound up speaking with Bill, and since Bill was the only one who would listen to him, the owner kept calling back. The only way Bill could get him to stop calling was to buy the place, whether his family needed it or not.
The other property of interest was the lighthouse located on the banks of the Delaware River, south of Delaware City. It was paneled and furnished completely with chestnut. Part of the allure of the lighthouse for Bill was that it did have so much chestnut, since he
cabinet maker? During World War II, in his early teens, he helped support his family by sweeping up in a cabinet- making shop. The craftsmen there took such an interest in him that they built him his own work table, presented him with his own set of tools and trained him in the trade. Talk
Family was very important to Bill. While waiting tables at the University of Delaware, he met Doris, whom he married. They had three wonderful children, Bill, Laurie, and Charles. Doris subsequently passed away and Bill remarried. Beth Rhodes Duncan, MD had adopted a were married. Since Beth is an actively practicing ENT
physician and Bill was retired (if you can call it that), Bill became Doctor-General-Stay-at-Home-Parent to Kristina, who is now 18.
But during his so-called retirement, Bill was not exactly sitting in a rocking chair, waiting to pick up Kristina or take her to her various His historical endeavors included being a Charter Member of the Army Historical Foundation, writing a book titled Founders of the Medical Society of Delaware (by the way, he was a Past President of the Medical Society of Delaware), and researching and recording the accomplishments of Delaware physicians in the military. His most recent project was an entire issue of the Delaware Medical Journal featuring a tribute to contemporary Delaware physicians who have served in the armed forces.
In everything Major General William H. Duncan, MD did, he had a keen eye for detail and generated in those who worked with him the same drive for perfection. All of us miss you already.
■ STEPHEN R. PERMUT, MD, JD is Professor of Family Medicine at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine, Temple University; Past President, Medical Society of Delaware; and Past Chair, AMA Board of Trustees.
Del Med J | January/February 2019 | Vol. 91 | No. 1
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