Students walking to class always stopped when they neared the double-wide anatomy trailer stationed on campus, Dr. Julius Mallette remembers. They’d peek inside the high, open windows to steal a look inside: They heard the medical students were conducting autopsies inside and wanted a glimpse.

Mallette expected that kind of scrutiny. After all, he was part of the first class of entering four-year medical students at ECU, and everybody wondered who these serious people were — and what they were doing in their classes.

“You know, you talk about living in a fishbowl. You would go downtown and they would say, ‘There is a medical student,’” says Mallette, who grew up in Raleigh and Wilmington. “We were interviewed by the newspaper and we had our picture taken. It was quite an experience.”

Everyone pinned high hopes on that first class. Mallette remembers being invited to Leo Jenkins’ home, to visit the man many people believe brought the medical school to ECU.

“We were over at Dr. Jenkins’ home on occasion to talk about his vision of the school. That was quite an inspiration for me,” he says. “But at the time it was, ‘Where is the next book,’ as I had to keep studying and not really pay a lot of attention to all that was occurring. It didn’t come to me until much later that this was going to be the place it is now.”

Now a clinical assistant professor in the Department of OB/GYN’s division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, he is helping people who face serious risks during their pregnancy from illnesses such as pre-eclampsia, eclampsia and other dangerous conditions that can lead to infant deaths. Mallette hopes he can make a difference. “If you can do anything, it’s not the size of your bank account, or the car you drive — if you can make a difference in the life of a child, then you have accomplished something.”

An important element in his training was a program called Clinical Correlates for Basic Sciences, a first-year class that brought medical students into the examination room. It was a tremendous motivation for Mallette, who learned right away how to make a connection between science and humanity.

“You could see the patient and say you wanted to learn something, so you could help that patient, do something to make their life a little bit easier,” he says. “We weren’t actually practicing, but we were learning a lot in a practice situation. That was very innovative, for a school to make strides toward integrating the curriculum.”

Now, as a practicing physician, he’s still listening to patients, often communicating with them through monitors through the university’s telemedicine program that reaches people who because of illness or transportation difficulties cannot make it to his office.

Being part of a community with shared goals makes working at PCMH a remarkable experience, he believes. “This place has the potential to really be the model for health-care centers throughout the country,” he says. “You are here to serve, but you are also here to learn and you are part of a community, part of a people who are trying to help other people in the east.”

Dr. Julius Q. Mallette