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Burkes started dental school career in 1969
It looked misplaced amidst the specimen cabinets and microscopes.
Hanging on the wall of E. Jefferson Burkes Jr.'s oral pathology lab was an auto
parts store calendar with a photograph of a red Farmall tractor, vintage
1949.
Only later did it make sense, when Burkes revealed that he restores antique
cars and tractors in his shop at his Pittsboro home.
The calendar served as a touch of that home in the place where Burkes had
dedicated much of his professional life for the past 32 years.
He retired earlier this spring from his post as a professor in the dental
school's Department of Diagnostic Sciences and General Dentistry. He started
here when a few 1949 Farmall tractors still may have been working the fields,
in 1969.
And glancing around his lab in the Old Dental Building, with its exposed pipes
and notebook-filled shelves and Mr. Coffee-box recycling bin, Burkes confessed
that the place he left was much like the place he'd found.
"It's looked about the same since 1969," he said in an interview before leaving
the University.
But Burkes' field has changed much. Perhaps the biggest change is that more
people recognize that oral pathology -- the study of diseases that affect the
mouth -- is a field.
"Dentists usually think about teeth, and hopefully we've made people more aware
of the soft tissues," Burkes said, referring to the gums, tongue and salivary
glands.
And by raising awareness, he hopes, he and other oral pathologists have helped
spread the word about how to prevent diseases such as a oral cancer, which can
be brought on by chewing tobacco and drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.
Burkes' 32-year Carolina career focused on teaching and patient care. In fact,
his lab was dedicated to patient care; not research. This is where he examined
tissue samples from his own patients as well as samples sent in from around the
state by dentists seeking his diagnosis.
"For 32 years Dr. Jeff Burkes has been one of the hardest-working teachers and
practitioners of oral pathology that the school has ever known," said John
Stamm, dental school dean. "His expertise was legend, and he was frequently
invited by alumni groups and dental associations to lecture as a continuing
dental education speaker.
"Dr. Burkes retired while still healthy and energetic, with the well-deserved
satisfaction that he taught the majority of students that have graduated from
the UNC School of Dentistry since its inception in 1950."
Why retire now? With new technology changing the way his profession is
practiced and the Human Genome Project's vast implications looming on the
horizon, Burkes said simply: "The timing is right."
"I just don't feel like getting up to speed for just a couple of years."
Lessons in Vietnam
Burkes didn't start out with an interest in oral pathology. A native of
central Texas, he earned his DDS from Baylor University in 1963 with an
interest in the traditional clinical aspects of dentistry.
But a stint in Vietnam changed that.
He joined the U.S. Air Force after graduating from Baylor and completed a
general dentistry internship. He was classified as a "general dental officer
and captain," but he found that his training couldn't live up to his catch-all
"general dental officer" billing when it came to soft-tissue maladies among the
soldiers. They suffered mainly from the same ills as people stateside, only
their symptoms were more acute because of stress and a lack of sanitation and
prevention.
"I saw a broad variety of diseases that I was not equipped to deal with,"
Burkes said.
And as the lone Air Force dentist serving in Vietnam during most of his
nine-month tour of duty, Burkes had only himself to turn to.
"I didn't have anybody to ask," he said.
Burkes returned to America determined to make up for the deficiencies in his
training. He earned a master's in oral pathology at the University of Michigan
in 1969, the same year in which he would later join Carolina's oral pathology
faculty.
Why Carolina?
Location played a part-- Burkes and his wife, a South Carolina native, wanted
to stay in the South. But the University's reputation drew him as well.
"This was an up-and-coming dental school and has been among the best," he
said.
Helping families
The decision to learn more about oral pathology wasn't the only thing
that Burkes' Vietnam duty influenced in his civilian life. Vietnam introduced
him to dental forensics -- the science of identifying bodies by matching teeth
to dental records -- and he went on to put that experience to work as a
consultant with North Carolina's chief medical examiner.
In Vietnam, Burkes was called in when a body was too damaged to be identified
by the conventional means of simply placing a face with a name. He handled some
300 cases.
"You can't view a dead body without it having an effect on you, but you learn
to deal with it," he said.
Burkes said that one way he managed in Vietnam was to keep his mind's eye on
the home front even as his vision focused on the bodies damaged beyond
recognition.
"It was a job that had to be done, and I know that a lot of it was knowing you
were helping families back home," he said.
In North Carolina, Burkes has worked with the state medical examiner's office
to identify bodies killed in mass disasters such as a commercial airline crash
a few years ago in Charlotte. He's also been brought in to identify skeletal
remains in individual cases.
Burkes will continue to consult with the medical examiner's office on a
part-time basis in retirement. He also plans to spend more time in his shop
with his antique cars and tractors.
"[Retirement] is feeling pretty good at this point," he said.
Parker joined her boss as a secretary in 1973; retired running the lab
A classic image associated with any doctor's laboratory is that of a physician
peering through a microscope in search of a diagnosis.
This is where expertise and experience blend to render a verdict and prescribe
a cure.
But that picture is often painted with the help of loyal lab technicians who
prepare those slides for examination. Loyal lab technicians like Karen Parker,
who worked with Jeff Burkes for most of his 32 years in Carolina's dental
school.
Parker retired earlier this spring at the same time as Burkes. She started
working on campus in 1971 at the University Service Plant, which at the time
handled Carolina's power, water and telephone needs. She'd just graduated from
Northwood High in Pittsboro.
"I thought, `I've got to go to school or go to work,' and the University seemed
like a good opportunity," Parker said.
Burkes hired her in 1973 as a secretary.
"She was talented," he said. "She had a fantastic memory for numbers and was a
100 percent accurate typist."
Parker had a particular flair for phone numbers, Burkes said.
"It was a daily occurrence. I'd say, `Karen, what's so and so's phone number?'
and it might have been five years since we called that person and she'd
remember the number."
Parker made the move to the lab technician's post in 1974. As a secretary, she
had seen many diagnoses made from slides, but not how they had reached that
point.
"I wanted to know what happened before" she said. "I wanted to see exactly what
the technicians did."
And see she did.
At the beginning of her career in the lab, Parker and one other technician
prepared 973 microscope slides. By the end, she -- still helped by just a
single technician -- was preparing some 5,000 slides each year.
The process involved -- among other steps -- running tissue samples through
differing concentrations of alcohol until they could be embedded in a paraffin,
which then was sliced into sections that could be mounted on slides for Burkes
to examine.
"She's pretty much run the lab," Burkes said.
Parker said it was a pleasure to work for Burkes, who made a point to do the
things every employee appreciates.
"He always says, `Thank you,'" Parker said.
The fact that Parker and Burkes retired at the same time was mere coincidence,
both said. But Parker said she was glad that she turned the clock on 30 years
of state service in time to avoid having to break in a new boss.
"I don't like a lot of change, so it's probably a good thing," she said.
Parker, a married mother of two boys, still lives in the area where she grew up
-- the tiny community of Bynum in Chatham County. She said she has no plans for
retirement, at least not for now.
"I just want to relax."
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