Harvey Estes
Edward Harvey Estes was born in Gay, Georgia, in 1925 and graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (BA, MD). He began his medical internship at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and completed it at Duke University Hospital. Prior to joining Duke’s staff in 1953, Estes served in the United States Navy from 1950 to 1952. He became chief of the cardiology service at Durham Veterans Affairs Hospital from 1953 to 1954 and chief of the medical service at the Durham Veterans Affairs Hospital from 1956 to 1962. In 1966, Estes served as the chair of Department of Community and Family Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. In 1967, Estes assumed responsibility for the physician assistant (PA) program. The program recruited and trained community health workers from impoverished communities and helped established rural satellite clinics in these communities staffed primarily by PAs.
In the 1970s, Estes turned his attention to the growth and development of family medicine residency programs and the promotion of preventive medicine. He served in both state and national leadership positions. As a leader of the North Carolina Medical Society and the North Carolina Institute of Medicine, he built a coalition of health professionals dedicated to training and placing family physicians, PAs, and nurse practitioners into medically underserved communities. Nationally, he chaired the American Medical Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs; served as president of the Association of Teachers of Preventive Medicine; chaired the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences’ Steering Committee for A Manpower Policy for Primary Health Care; and served on the Board of Directors of the Society of Teachers in Family Medicine. Dr. Estes authored or co-authored over 100 scientific articles.
He retired from Duke in 1990 to become the founding director of the North Carolina Medical Society Foundation’s Community Practitioner Program, a program designed to increase the number of health care providers in the North Carolina’s underserved areas. He remained involved with the program until 2000.
Interview
This oral history interview was conducted with Dr. E. Harvey Estes on June 25, 2007 by Jessica Roseberry.