Special Certification for General Surgical Oncology: Concerns of a Curmudgeon

Excerpt

The possibility of some form of official recognition for the general surgeon who has expertise in surgical oncology has been discussed ever since the evolution of the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) from the James Ewing Society back in 1975. The Council of the SSO concluded in the late 1970s that this recognition should definitely take the form of certificates for those who had additional competence and experience in the surgical and overall management of patients with cancer for whom general surgery operations played some role. After all, our fellow disciplines of medical oncology and radiation oncology had established such a process and it seemed logical for surgeons participating in multidisciplinary care of cancer patients to have similar recognition as experts in oncology. Since I had the privilege of serving as SSO President then, I was instructed to relay this message from our SSO Council to my colleagues on the American Board of Surgery (ABS). Due to a general reticence for such subspecialization at that time among members of the ABS, and possibly for other reasons, this proposal from the SSO fell on “deaf ears” and nothing happened. …