Russ Hall, who has been my friend since our days as classmates at the University of Missouri Medical School and has been mentioned occasionally on this site, usually as Duke of Derm (Russ is, for example, the narrator in the seminal How To Make The Original Chocolodka video), celebrates his birthday today. In searching for his official title (which turns out to be “J. Lamar Callaway Professor of Dermatology, in the Duke University School of Medicine”), I serendipitous;y discovered the above notice on the Duke Dermatology Facebook Page about his receiving the 2017 Medical Dermatology Society Lifetime Achievement Award at the March 2, 2017 MDS Annual Meeting.
Russ, of course, didn’t tell me about the award (I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have told me about his birthday if it weren’t already pubic knowledge). I only found out about him dating Jean (also in our medical school class) when they told me they were engaged. Jean assures me she knew about it early on.
Regardless, Happy Birthday, Russ
Russ & Jean, along Neil & Irene Ellis1 and Penny & me, will be leaving soon for our annual Hilton Head vacation, a tradition begun almost 30 years ago. We’ll try to find out what else Russ has been up to.
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