Dr. Roger C. Ernest

I grew up in Durham and I am extremely proud to work here at Duke. All of my family members still call the Bull City home. Most of my education was completed in Durham, except for four years I spent down the road in Chapel Hill. I played football there and developed an interest in orthopaedic surgery that led me home. I specialize in hip and knee replacement and am very fortunate to do so. We have the ability to help so many people with these operations. It is extremely rewarding to help someone get back to doing the things they want to do with their life. Duke is the kind of place where you are challenged by the most difficult cases weekly and I appreciate that fact. We have great doctors in every field and we work as a team on every aspect of a patient's care once they enter the hospital. Dr. Bolognesi is highly rated in 7 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Osteoarthritis, Acute Pain, Arthritis, Knee Replacement, and Hip Replacement.

Carmelo Milano is a General Surgeon and a Transplant Surgeon in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Milano has been practicing medicine for over 35 years is highly rated in 12 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Tricuspid Regurgitation, Constrictive Pericarditis, Heart Tumor, Heart Transplant, and Heart Bypass Surgery.

With over 20 years of experience as a busy general thoracic surgeon, I am referred patients with cancers in the chest and other difficult problems involving all the organs of the chest that are not from cancer. One of the things that attracted me to the field is the long-term relationship with my patients. I tell all my patients that I’m their doctor for life. I see patients for many, many years. Back in 2000, when we had a 26-inch snow here -- it was a Tuesday -- on my clinic day, everyone said no one would come to clinic. But I actually had 23 or 24 patients show up in four-wheel drives. It’s not that I’m such a fabulous doctor that they came to see me. It’s that they are cancer patients and this was their annual visit or their follow up. It was important to them. So we were here for them, and they came. I enjoy seeing my patients back 12, 13, 14 years later and learning what they’ve been up to and what their families have been up to. That’s a bond you get in oncology that a lot of other fields don’t have that treat patients then turn them back over to their primary care physicians. We as a team follow people, and I like that. Dr. Harpole is highly rated in 14 conditions, according to our data. His top areas of expertise are Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC), Endoscopy, and Advanced Bronchoscopy.