Doctor Shafick George Hatem, later known as Ma Haide (馬海德) was an American-Lebanese physician. He attended UNC-Chapel Hill in 1926, where he studied medicine and joined the Philanthropic Assembly. After graduating from medical school in Geneva, Switzerland, he traveled to China, where he joined the Chinese Communist Party. During the Sino-Japanese War he provided medical aid in Red Army camps. Ma became the first foreigner to acquire citizenship in the People's Republic of China; he was also a close advisor to Mao Zedong, the first Chairman of the PRC. Ma's contributions to the world of medicine are highly significant; he led groundbreaking research on leprosy and helped to nearly eradicate venereal diseases in the Chinese countryside. He's remembered dearly by the Chinese people today and has won several distinguished awards, including a Lasker Award. A wooden engraving of Ma–the only of its kind–exists in the Philanthropic Society Collection.

One of DiPhi's most famous alumni, James K. Polk is one of the first of many Polks in Dialectic Society history. Learn how their significant contributions to both intra-societal and national legislature stand today.

Today, the Mangum name reflects a successive 200 years of practice, as well as genealogy. Willie P. Mangum, President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate, and his line defined and bloodied North Carolina politics in the early 19th century.