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Doctor enjoyed ‘gratifying’ career
Geologists collect data on aquifer’s depletion ———
Annual testing helps farmers, state officials By Peter Hancock phancock@ljworld.com
Richard Gwin/Journal-World Photo
MARK PRAEGER HAS BEEN A SURGEON IN LAWRENCE SINCE 1977. Now that the late-night emergency calls are a thing of the past, he can focus on one of his other interests: fly fishing.
Lawrence surgeon casting line into retirement’s waters
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or the love of trout, give the man a moment. Dr. Mark Praeger hasn’t tied a good Bead Head Pheasant Tail for years. Every time Praeger even thinks about using his magnificent hands to mess with some thread and a little Peacock leg — it is a fly-fishing term, before you go off half-cocked — you interrupt him. A phone call, a page, a tap on the shoulder: That’s been Praeger’s Lawrence life. He’s a surgeon, which means one minute he has his hands all over a Woolly Bugger — again, flyfishing — and the next he has his hands in a man’s chest. (Yes, he washed them.) Praeger began serving as a Lawrence surgeon in 1977, back in the days when doctors all over the city would get a call at any hour from the hospital’s emergency department to deal with everything from a broken arm to a heart attack. Back then, there weren’t doctors assigned full-
Lawhorn’s Lawrence
Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
your spouse you’ll maybe return home in about three hours. A bad intestine? Better put the dinner in the fridge. Dinners will be a little warmer now for Praeger, who officially retired from practice last week. Time with his Woolly Buggers and other fly-fishing gizmos can be done without a cell phone by his side. “Surgeons are expected to fix things immediately,” Praeger says. “The immediacy of it is part of the attraction, at least when you are young. The immediacy of it becomes a little more tedious when you aren’t as young. But I’ve never resented it because it is just so stimulating.” Still, a moment every now and then will be nice.
time to the emergency room — only nurses who had the phone numbers of every doctor in the city. That arrangement has changed, but the life of a surgeon still is ruled by the phone call
from the hospital that always Not that there haven’t been comes. It is just a matter of when. moments over more than 40 years And when it does, you stop what in medicine. (Before coming to you’re doing and rush to the hospital. If it is a simple emerPlease see PRAEGER, page 8A gency appendectomy, you tell
A few hundred yards off a blacktop road, down a dirt path that runs through the stubble of last year’s corn field, Brownie Wilson uses a GPS locator on his laptop to steer his four-wheel-drive SUV to the site of the next well. Once there, he gets out and drops a tape measure into the head of the well, sending the weighted end down exactly 155 feet, submersing it into a pool of water known as the Ogallala Aquifer that has been buried below the dusty plains for millions of years. Based on previous records, that should be more than enough to hit the top of the water table. Then he reels the tape measure back into its spool like a fisherman pulling in his line. The end of the tape measure is covered in chalk, so when it comes back above the surface, he can see exactly how far into the water it went. He reads that number, subtracts it from 155, and that tells him exactly how far down the water is. Please see AQUIFER, page 2A
Peter Hancock/Journal-World Photo
BROWNIE WILSON OF THE KANSAS GEOLOGICAL SURVEY measures the depth of a water well near Colby during an annual survey of well depths in the Ogallala Aquifer.
Regents’ social media policy status uncertain By Ben Unglesbee bunglesbee@ljworld.com
After the Kansas Board of Regents announced Tuesday that they would review a recently approved social media policy, the policy’s fate and status remain uncertain. But as it’s currently written, the policy could have different effects on different groups of workers at universities depending on their roles and whether they have tenure. In December the re-
gents unanimously passed the policy, which allows the leaders of Kansas public universities to fire employees for social media posts that, among other things, conflict with the university’s BOARD OF best inter- REGENTS ests. In response to widespread outcry that the policy violated free speech rights and academic freedom, the regents an-
nounced they would take a second look. A work group composed of university employees chosen by the regents will review the policy and report back to the regents in April. For now, the policy remains in the Regents policy manual as it was originally written. Whether
it’s enforceable at KU and other universities remains in question. Richard Levy, a KU distinguished professor of law, said the university might need to develop its own policy that “specified the permissible and impermissible uses of social media” before it can take action, he said.
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For now, the policy remains in the Regents policy manual as it was originally written. Whether it’s enforceable at KU and other universities remains in question.
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Asked what she would do if a relevant situation arose, KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said, “If we had the need, we would use a procedure that would involve faculty and staff input to address any situation that occurred, and we have not done that.”
Who is most vulnerable As the policy is currently written, different groups at the university could fare differently under it. Tenured faculty
PETS AND WEATHER Your pets get cold, too. Keep them warm during the cold snap. Page 3A
might have special protections, though that is not clear. Traditionally, tenure is meant to protect faculty from political reprisal for their ideas. At KU, tenured professors are protected from dismissal except in limited cases of violations of law, university policy or professional ethics. Levy pointed to different potential scenarios, one where the new social media policy would be subject to existing policies Please see POLICY, page 5A
Vol.156/No.5 28 pages