Tuesday, January 21, 2020, 11:30 AM – 1 PM EST

REN DAVIS, Retired Administrator and Consultant, Emory Healthcare. Author of Caring for Atlanta: A History of Emory Crawford Long Hospital [2003]

"When Emory Doctors Went to War: Honoring the Centennial of the Emory Medical Unit's Service in the First World War"

Following the United States entry into the Great War in April 1917, the U.S. Army Surgeon General and the American Red Cross called on the country's medical schools and major hospitals to organize units to provide care to the soldiers deploying for combat in France.  Emory University School of Medicine Dean, William Elkin, MD, asked faculty member and military veteran Edward Campbell Davis, MD, the presenter’s grandfather, to recruit physicians and nurses and to organize the Emory Medical Unit.  After training at Camp Gordon, the Emory Unit arrived in France in July 1918, and established Base Hospital 43 in the city of Blois.  The hospital would care for over 9,000 patients, earning praise from AEF commander, Gen. John J. Pershing, before returning home in March 1919.  This presentation also will highlight selected medical and surgical advances that arose from the war, and provide a brief overview of the second Emory Unit that served in North Africa and France during World War II.