DeBusk lecture to honor UF pediatrician, promote better diagnosis

University of Florida pediatrics Professor Emeritus Franklin L. DeBusk, M.D., knows the camera can be a medical instrument — beginning in the late 1960s he helped residents enhance their diagnostic skills by taking photos of easily recognized conditions, assembling a collection of more than 600 slides.

DeBusk’s work will be celebrated in a unique presentation at 8 a.m. Nov. 14 in room LG-101A of UF’s McKnight Brain Institute, combining medical education, UF history and newly digitized images of many slides. The event is free and open to the public.

The Franklin L. DeBusk Inaugural Lectureship is both a tribute to DeBusk and a reminder to medical students and residents that physical examination remains an integral part of accurate diagnosis, said lecturer Tom Benton, M.D., a Gainesville pediatrician and UF adjunct assistant professor of pediatrics. Organizers plan to make the lecture an annual event and hope to establish a program to collect new images and perpetuate DeBusk’s work.

A Gainesville native, DeBusk joined the UF College of Medicine faculty in 1966 after working in private practice and served as division chief of general pediatrics from 1966-85. He is well known for outreach work with clinics in rural North Florida and research on progeria, a disease that causes premature aging in children.