American College of Surgeons - Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 24 text:

American College of Surgeons twenty-five dollars on admission, and five dollars annually there- after for five years. Realizing that the income to be derived in this way was but temporary, and desiring to place the College on a safe, independent, and financially adequate basis, the Fellows in June, 1914, voted to raise an Endowment for the College of one million dollars. This plan provided that the Endowment should be invested in perpetuity, the income only to be used for the constructive work of the College. It provided, further, that each Fellow be asked for a subscription of five hundred dollars. It was understood that all subscriptions should be contingent on the raising of five hundred thousand dollars by December i, 1914, the first payment on the subscription to be made January i, 191 5. Subscriptions to the amount of $113,000 were pledged at the first meeting and it was the intention to push the plan among those Fellows who were absent from that meeting, after the summer vacations. Because of the war, however, the Regents decided to ask those who had made subscriptions to give their consent to extend the time for obtaining the subscription one year, or until December i, 191 5, and the beginning for the payment of the sub- scription to January 1, 1916. This extension has been agreed to. The subscription plan is a promise to pay in the form of a note-pledge, with a discretionary provision to pay in installments, the entire amount at one time, or to have the entire amount stand in the form of a promissory note, interest to be paid on all balances at the rate of five per cent per annum, the exact form of card being,— In case of death all unpaid balances are cancelled. ENDOWMENT FUND hereby subscribe Five Hundred {$500.00) Dollars to the Endowment Fund of the American College oj Surgeons, the amount to be paid as follows: Jan. 1916 • Jan. 1918 S Jan. 1920 Jan. 1917 $ Jan. 1919 1 I further agree to pay interest on the balances due on this pledge at the rate of 5 per cent per annum, beginning January i, igi6. It is further agreed that this subscription shall be void unless the subscription to the Endowment Fund equals $500,000 by December i, 1915. Signed

Page 23 text:

General Survey 3 by bonds which reached the deepest emotions of these surgeons, they pledged their active support. The College became to them a vision for the full payment of the surgeon ' s debt to his pro- fession. The details of organization, however, which still remained to be perfected, were quite beyond the conception of all except the few who had become intimately associated with the growth of the plan. These details cannot here be related. In the months which followed, the General Secretary of the College, Dr. Franklin H. Martin, received about five thousand applications for Fellowship. In order that action might be taken upon these applications with the least unnecessary delay, the Regents promptly authorized the appointment of Committees on Credentials. These com- mittees consist of the Central Committee which reports directly to the Regents, and of State and Provincial Committees which report to the Central Committee. The Central Committee, consisting of five Fellows of the College, holds its meetings about once each week at the offices of the College. It reviews the data and correspondence on file in connection with each candidate. The State and Provincial Committees, each consisting of from five to seven Fellows, are appointed in nearly every state in the Union and in four divisions of Canada. These committees also review the data concerning each candidate and report their recommendations to the Central Committee. In appointing each of these committees the Regents have asked that no recommendations for Fellowship be made if there were lack of information or doubt as to a candidate ' s qualifications. These necessary precautions have caused delay of final action upon many cases which the Regents and officers of the College regret. Details as to the number of Fellows admitted under this routine at each of the four Convocations are here given later. Also the data asked for on the formal application for Fellowship are given together with a tentative plan of admission of candidates whose applications were filed after November i, 1914. THE FINANCIAL STATUS In order to provide means for the organization of the College an initial Fellowship Fee of fifty dollars from each Fellow was voted at the first meeting of the College. This sum was payable,

Page 25 text:

General Survey 5 At this date pledges to secure the first half million dollars amount to $452,000 and it is believed that the half million will be fully subscribed by December i, 19 15. The Regents will continue the original plan and in the near future expect that the million dollars will be all subscribed. In all the history of medicine probably no other incident tells of such definite loyalty and sincerity on the part of the profession for its advancement toward an unselfish ideal of service. By these subscriptions the Fellows have made genuine sacrifice. And the significant fact in this connection is that the entire impetus of the College springs from within its own membership. Neces- sarily that impetus implies reform. But there is a vast difference between reform preached at men and reform innate in the hearts of men which finds expression at their own initiative. Whatever impetus the College possesses, it originates among the surgeons themselves. It is not an extraneous force or an uplift movement. But rather, out of the widely divergent views on many subjects among the Fellows, the aims of the College rise as those time-tried aspirations which are inherently the basis of all that is valuable in the vocation of surgery. The purposes of the College are concerned directly with matters of character and of training, with the betterment of hospitals and of the teaching facilities of medical schools, with laws which relate to medical practice and privilege, and with an unselfish protection of the public from incompetent service; in a word, they embody those ideals which have stood the test of centuries. Upon these the Fellows are united. These are the ideals which each Fellow, single-handed, has endeavored to foster, and the expression of them to-day through the College comes as a sort of mass-con- sciousness of the whole body of Fellows. The splendid fact is that the Fellows have grasped in an instant the meaning of the College by a process of fusion and they have gladly made sacrifices for its success. PROGRAM OF ACTIVITY In all progress toward the fulfilment of the aims of the College the Regents appreciate that public approval is an essential force; and to acquire public approval they realize that straight thinking, time, patience, and endless effort are the telling factors. They reahze also that success lies only in the keeping of the fundamental principles for which the College was established clearly in the