American College of Surgeons - Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 31 text:

Hospital Standardization In case of death all unpaid balances are canceled. ENDOWMENT FUND hereby subscribe Five Hundred {$500) Dollars to the Endowment Fund of the American College of Surgeons, the amount to be paid in installments as follows : Date Amount Date Amount Date Amount $ $ J $ $ $ further agree to pay interest on unpaid balances of this pledge at the rate of 5 per cent per annum. SipnfiA Date - The Regents propose to bring the Endowment Fund up to one miUion dollars as rapidly as may be. To this end they earnestly request Fellows of the College who have not already done so, and who can do so without hardship to themselves, to subscribe to the fund rather than to pay annual dues. From time to time unexpended balances in the treasury of the College are transferred by the Regents to this fund. Subscription cards may be had on application from the Secretary General of the College. HOSPITAL STANDARDIZATION The College published in March, 191 8, a bulletin entitled Stand- ard of EflBiciency for the First Hospital Survey of the College (Vol. Ill, No. 3). The title states the purpose of the bulletin. Following this pubHcation, and with the cooperation of the hospitals themselves, the College began an inspection of hospitals in accordance with the plan stated in the bulletin. Special inspec- tors were employed for this purpose for all or for part of their time. The results of the inspection, restating the problem of stand- ardization and recording the findings in the hospitals, will be pub- lished early in 1919. As an outgrowth of the first survey of the College, also, two additional bulletins will be published, the first

Page 30 text:

4 American College of Surgeons Some further account of the endowment fund and of the finan- cial side of the College is here given. In order to provide means for the organization of the College an initial Fellowship fee of $50 from each Fellow was voted at the first meeting of the College. This sum was payable, $25 on admission, and five dollars annually thereafter 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 budget of the College. It provided, further, that each Fellow be asked for a subscription of five hundred dollars on condition 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. But because of the outbreak of war, the Regents de- cided to ask those who had made subscriptions to give their consent to extend the time for obtaining the subscription one year. This extension was, with few exceptions, agreed to. As already stated, the first half milHon dollars in due time were more than subscribed. Those who subscribed five hundred dol- lars to this fund are life members of the College and are not sub- ject to the payment of any further dues whatsoever. But, in the meantime, the work of the College called for expenditures beyond the income provided by the interest of the Endowment Fund, and the Fellows of the College, in annual meeting held in Phil- adelphia on October 27, 1916, voted that those who had not sub- scribed $500 to the Endowment should be assessed by annual dues of $25 each under provisions as above stated. At any time a Fellow of the College may become a life member by subscribing $500 to the permanent Endowment Fund of the College. Subscription cards used for this purpose are of the form given on the following page.

Page 32 text:

6 American College oj Surgeons having to do with the keeping of records and the second being case record forms, the aim being, in the latter, to suggest forms that are practical, simple, and adequate. These two bulletins will also be ready for distribution early next year. In order to obtain accurate information with regard to the entire hospital field in advance of visits to the hospitals, the College sent a questionnaire to approximately all general hospitals dis- tributed throughout the United States and Canada. In response to these requests for information approximately i,ioo hospitals promptly returned the data. The questionnaires had to do with the financial status of the hospitals, the capacity and scope, the hospital staff, the clinical laboratories, case records, departmental organization, and the training of internes and nurses. The reason the College took up hospital standardization as part of its work is here briefly stated: The admission of Fellows to the College made necessary at once that the Regents adopt a sound standard of surgical train- ing. From this fact it followed that the Regents must necessarily acquire accurate data with regard to the training of surgeons not only in the medical schools, but also in hospitals. But this approach to hospitals involved the Regents in more than a con- sideration of the training of surgeons in these institutions. The training of the internist is also the training of the surgeon, and in fact every procedure of a hospital designed for the welfare of its patients is inseparable from the training of a surgeon. Further, at an early date the Regents were convinced the usefulness of the Colleg e could find its most adequate expression in a continent-wide standardization of hospitals. A sound analysis of hospital conditions was, therefore, not merely a task which the College may do. It was a task which the College must do, for the College is a responsible society of about 4,000 surgeons which aims to include in its Fellowship all who possess practical scientific knowledge of medicine and surgery, together with honor, trustworthiness, and strong moral character. In so far as the problem is concerned with hospitals, it is compli- cated by the fact that among hospitals there is wide discrepancy in the educational opportunities offered; there is confusion as to