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Deborah Orem Patrick B.S. 1977, Biological Sciences

Deb Orem Patrick grew up in Kokomo, Indiana, and considers herself a prime example of the American Dream. “I come from a working class background,” she says. “My dad served in the Air Force in WWII and saw the world, and ended up bartending as his career. My mom, after I was born, stayed home and raised us kids. Mom was one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known—she read every book I read and more. Both my parents instilled in me the idea that education leads to a better life, that anything worth doing is worth doing well, and that no job is beneath one.”

Deb says she always loved science, even to the point of being the only girl in her 6th grade science class. “I chose biology as a major because it focuses on life processes and I found it all fascinating,” she says. “I find it difficult still to find anything related to science not interesting! Biology is about life—what it is and isn’t, how and why it works. It’s an innately interesting, interwoven, and complex science, and I don’t understand how anyone would not find it mesmerizing!” Deb’s three older brothers did their undergraduate work at Purdue, and her familiarity with the university coupled with Purdue’s reputation in the sciences made her decision easy, she says.

Deb has fond memories of her days at Purdue, but one of the strongest is the variety of people she met. “Coming from a small town, I found the diversity of people exciting,” she says. “They ranged from a good friend who came from a farming family near Seymour, Indiana, to my first-year roommate who was from Iran.” Deb says she’ll never forget the African student in Physics 252 who depended on her to translate the professor’s thick German accent. “And then there was my college boyfriend, an amazing electrical engineering student whose father worked for an oil services company and had moved his family all over the world—Paris, London, Australia. We’d go to French films on Saturday nights. I felt very sophisticated at the time.”

Some of Deb’s memories are a little less happy: “The time I forgot the combination to the lock on my organic chemistry locker and had to ask our very cute TA for the “Jaws of Death” to open it—while wearing those incredibly unattractive geeky sickly green safety glasses,” she says. “Then there was that awful sinking sensation when my unknown finally crystallized as it was going down the drain in organic chemistry class.”

Deb went on to receive her M.D. from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1981, and she’s currently a family practice doctor. She says her experience as a teaching assistant in Dr. Michael Forman’s structural biology class gave her valuable experience. “Teaching remains a true joy, and throughout my professional life I have and continue to incorporate teaching at all levels into my work,” she says. “Currently this comes in the form of occasionally staffing at the St. Vincent Family Practice Residency Program.”

Deb’s husband, Randy Patrick, is a geologist by training and currently an anthropology PhD candidate at Indiana University. “My association with him has given me some unique opportunities, like participating in a mastodon dig with the Indiana State Museum and two trips to Semliki Wildlife Reserve in Uganda,” she says. Deb works with primatologist Dr. Kevin Hunt of Indiana University at the Semliki Chimpanzee Project Research Camp located in the Semliki Wildlife Refuge. Deb provides medical support for the Research Camp.

“Medically, I do all I can to provide pre-expedition planning and support to individuals traveling to the research camp with regard to immunizations, malarial prophylaxis, personal medical kits, and general travel advice,” she says. “I also do the same for my husband’s Paleocene/Eocene research teams working in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming.” Deb has developed a medical kit and instructions to keep at the researchers’ tent, and she plans to inventory and resupply it on her trips there. Onsite, she addresses medical problems as they arise—from splinters and gastrointestinal illnesses to heat exhaustion and malarial attacks.

In the future Deb hopes to provide an acclimatization schedule for camp volunteers and researchers and provide first aid education to camp employees. “To expand my medical support function for various research field camps, I plan to offer my knowledge and expertise to the faculty and students of the Anthropology Department at Indiana University,” she says. “Currently I keep myself available to the Semliki Research Camp via e-mail for medical issues.”

Deb has participated in a surface search on her husband’s 100 meter taphonomy transect, and has helped to gather and run pH samples on two such transects. Both of these projects are to define the geology of the reserve and to define fossilization potential for chimpanzees and early hominids. “The botany of the area interests me and I have helped to compile materials to aid researchers in identification of flora,” she says. “Knowing what, how, why, and when the chimpanzees eat provides valuable information to much of the planned research at Semliki. Being able to identify plants, fruits, and trees is critical, and I have started a digital photographic record of common trees and their identifiers.”

Deb envisions spending more time at the research camp—three to six months rather than the two or three weeks she has been able to manage. She also plans to be active in fund raising for the SCP and Dr. Kevin Hunt’s HOPE lab.

Deb says her medical training enables her to be an excellent field researcher. “Medicine is all about observatory powers and a lot of patience, as well as interpretation” she says. “We doctors are trained to know that details are important, and doctors and field researchers share many attributes and skills.”

“Our world population is over six billion humans, while the best estimates of the wild chimpanzee population is now between 100,000 and 150,000,” Deb says. “The main reasons for these numbers —and for similar numbers of other primates—are population pressures that demand increased land and result in limitation of primate habitat, the bush meat trade, and the continued hunting of primates for pets, sales to zoos, and for purported exotic medicinal purposes. I believe we can be better stewards of our planet. I believe it is incumbent on all of us as individuals to control population and communally to encourage our government to support sustainable policies in our country and around the world.”

Deb says she remains thankful for the quality of the professors who reinforced and augmented her interest in the sciences, especially Joe Vanable, Michael Forman, Ed Simon, and Anna Berkovitz. “My interest and affection for all things biological continues!”

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