2019 SSAT Presidential Address: the Path Forward

Excerpt

In his 1967 SSAT Presidential Address, Dr. Robert Turrell spoke about the launching of a new surgical organization oriented to the problems of the alimentary tract based on a research and educational foundation in 1960, The Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT).¹ The founding members of SSAT consisted of authors who had contributed papers to six issues of the Surgical Clinics of North America edited by Dr. Turell, and the authors of the chapters in his 1959 textbook Diseases of the Colon and Anorectum.^2‐8 I had the good fortune to train at Los Angeles County – USC Medical Center under one of the founding members, Arthur Donovan, who contributed to Turrell’s textbook. Art Donovan was Chairman of Surgery at USC from 1979 to 1990, and I gave the eulogy at his funeral a month ago. Just to give you a sense of where Arthur Donovan sits in the history of American Surgery. His Chief of Surgery at Boston City Hospital was Gardner Child, and his junior resident was Basil Pruitt, who died last month. Drs. Gardner, Donovan, and Pruitt were all SSAT members. …