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October 16-20 | San Diego, CA

Celebrate surgery’s rich history at Clinical Congress

This year’s Clinical Congress will feature 
a number of opportunities for attendees to learn more about surgery’s rich history.

The American College of Surgeons (ACS) Surgical History Group is sponsoring a History of Surgery Poster Session, 9:00 am−4:30 pm Monday through Wednesday in the Exhibit Hall of the San Diego Convention Center. Posters will be presented by Fellows, residents, and medical students. Poster presentations and judging will take place 9:30 am–
12:30 pm Wednesday in the Exhibit Hall. The winning poster and runner-up will be announced during the ACS Surgical History Group Breakfast.

David L. Nahrwold, MD, FACS
David L. Nahrwold, MD, FACS

The Surgical History Group Breakfast will take place 7:00−8:00 am Tuesday at the San Diego Convention Center, 6C/6F. Guest Lecturer David L. Nahrwold, MD, FACS, a recipient of the ACS Distinguished Service Award, coauthoredA Century of Surgeons and Surgery: The American College of Surgeons, 1913−2012, with Peter J. Kernahan, MD, PhD, FACS, and authored A Mirror Reflecting Surgery, Surgeons, and Their College: The Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Nahrwold’s lecture will focus on the College’s impact on our nation’s health care system. The program will provide an opportunity for attendees to share stories and discuss where surgery has been and how best to preserve it into the future.

The Charles G. Drake History of Surgery Lecture has been a fixture at the Clinical Congress since it was established by the Advisory Council for Neurological Surgery in 1992. This year’s lecturer is John R. Potts, MD, FACS, senior vice-president, surgical accreditation, Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, who will speak on The Shifting Sands of Surgical Education. The Drake Lecture will take place 2:30−3:30 pm Monday at the San Diego Convention Center, 20BC.

Seymour I. Schwartz, MD, FACS
Seymour I. Schwartz, MD, FACS

Facts are now fallacies, dogma disproven, algorithms altered. Can the dramatic changes in surgery over the last 50 years help us foresee the possibilities and the progress in the next half century? A Special Session titled 50th Anniversary Celebration of Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery, First Edition:A Retrospective and Futuristic View, will attempt to answer this question and will take place 11:30 am–12:30 pm Tuesday at the San Diego Convention Center, 20BC. Through this retrospective reflection on the first edition of Schwartz’s Principles of Surgery, a panel will review the most important advances in surgery of the last 50 years and will speculate on the exciting advances that loom on the horizon. Fifty years from now at the ACS Clinical Congress, what will our successors think and say about our current state of the art? The author of the landmark text, Seymour I. Schwartz, MD, FACS, who is celebrating his 60th year on the faculty of the University of Rochester, NY, will co-moderate with David Linehan, MD, FACS, his successor as chairman of surgery.

A Panel Session, U.S. Presidents and Their Surgical Care, 12:45−2:15 pm Tuesday at the San Diego Convention Center, 6B, will feature a review of the elective and emergency surgical care that U.S. Presidents have received. The variability of care after assassination attempts will be illustrated by comparing the factors associated with the fatal outcome of James Garfield with the conditions associated with the rapid recovery of Ronald Reagan. The effect of the office on surgical decisions and the selection of operative procedures will be illustrated through the emergency surgery for Dwight D. Eisenhower’s bowel obstruction and the elective cholecystectomy of Lyndon B. Johnson. Prior to the Internet age, operations were often performed in secret, as was the case when Grover Cleveland underwent the removal of a palatine tumor, presumably to avoid alarming the electorate. The compromises in care that have been necessary, the considerations involving security, privacy, and governmental continuity, will be discussed.

Surgical Jeopardy, 8:00–11:15 am Wednesday at the San Diego Convention Center, 20D, will feature a number of history-related questions. Adopted from the popular television game show, this program offers teams of residents the chance to showcase their surgical knowledge by competing to answer surgical questions.

Attendees will have the opportunity to learn about Icons in Surgery during two Video-Based Education Sessions. Icons in Surgery I will take place 2:30–3:30 pm Tuesday at the San Diego Convention Center, 33ABC, and will honor internationally recognized military surgeon Norman M. Rich, MD, FACS, and ACS Second Vice-President Basil A. Pruitt, Jr., MD, FACS, FCCM, MCCM. Icons in Surgery II will take place 11:30 am–12:30 pm Wednesday at the convention center, 33ABC. Dr. Schwartz and Patricia J. Numann, MD, FACS, both ACS Past-Presidents, will be honored.

For more information about these programs or about the College’s history in general, stop by the Member Engagement area in ACS Central, 9:00 am–4:30pm Monday through Wednesday, San Diego Convention Center, Exhibit Hall.