American College of Surgeons - Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

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GENERAL SURVEY HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE THE American College of Surgeons is a society of the Siirgeons of the United States and of Canada. Its purposes are to keep before the profession and the general public of this continent a true conception of medicine as a social service; to advance especially the art and technique of surgery; and to advance the ideals in the practice of surgery, spiritual as well as intellectual. The College aims to include within its Fellowship those surgeons who are competent in the art and technique of surgery, and who have in them a fine sensitiveness of their debt to public service. In the admission of surgeons to its Fellowship the College aims to be democratic and with reasonable speed to accept all candidates who fulfill the standards of admission. In the five years of the life of the College its Directory has now become a public document of value, for it indicates what surgeons have been found qualified in their various specialties and where they are located. The College developed directly out of a consciousness within the Clinical Congress of Surgeons, first, that such an organization would serve to inspire genuine advance, not only on the human or moral side of the practice of surgery, but also on the side of the art and technique; and, second, that it would serve as a safeguard to the public in the matter of honest and competent practice of surgery. In the minds of these men the motive was to foster high professional ideals in medicine and to instruct the public as to what these ideals mean. This motive in November, 191 2, found constructive ex- pression. The Congress, at that time, appointed a committee of twelve to consider the advisability of organizing the College and it further empowered this committee to proceed with the organiza- tion if, after a thorough survey, such a step were deemed wise. I

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xviii American College of Surgeons nova scotia Henry K. MacDonald Philip Weatherbe ONTARIO Irving H. Cameron D. J. Gibb Wishart Hadley Williams B. P. Watson A. T. Shillington prince edward island Stephen Rice Jenkins QUEBEC James A. Hutchison W. W. Chipman Edmond M. von Eberts Zephyr RhSaume

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2 American College of Surgeons Without delay the committee of twelve went about its task. It sought the advice and guidance of the surgeons of this continent who stood out preeminently as leaders in each of the divisions of surgery. It sought especially the counsel of the professors of sur- gery among the stronger medical schools. In March, 1913, so abundantly was the committee assured of the approval and support of these men that it issued a call for a meeting of the organization to be held in Washington on May 5, 191 3. About five hundred surgeons were invited to this meeting. At the meeting in Washington almost five hundred surgeons were present. The College was legally organized. By-laws, rules, and regulations were adopted after due consideration, and the Board of Governors, the Board of Regents, and the ofhcers of the College were elected. Details of these matters are published in the Year Book and in other bulletins of the College. But the signifi- cance of the Washington meeting lies in the sincerity with which those surgeons present pledged their active support. The College became to them a vision for the advancement of surgery without precedent in history. The note of sincerity struck at the Washington meeting has in the five and one-half years now elapsed not only spread far among the profession and the general public, but it has also increased in intensity. Progress of this sort is possible only because the im- petus of the College springs from within its own membership. Necessarily that impetus imphes reform. But there is a vast dif- ference 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 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 aspira- tions 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 better- ment of hospitals and of the teaching faciUties of medical schools, with laws which relate to medical practice and privilege, and with an unselfish protection of the public from incompetent ser-