Becoming a Surgeon in the Early 20th Century: Parallels to the Present

Abstract

H ceived a degree f 1877, s from 1 H V s C c a hether the reason is patient safety, lifestyle issues, chang edical student demographics, rapid advances in technolo he byzantine path of specialization, or simply economics an anticipate a significant change in the way that men omen will learn the craft of surgery in the 21st century orical discussions of graduate surgical education and train lmost invariably make reference to William Stewart Hal 1852-1922) as the “father” of the American surgical resid ystem. It is easy to come away from these discussions he impression that the current method of training surgeo he predictable outcome of a direct evolutionary process egan with Halsted and the German-influenced model of ical training that was initiated at Johns Hopkins in 1889 However, the widespread adoption of prolonged training i ormal residency program as the preferred and, eventually, the ath to becoming a surgeon did not occur until after World WWII). Although some surgeons undoubtedly operated with dequate training or proper supervision, many men and a omen became competent surgeons in the first half of the entury and did so through many pathways, which were ictated by the constraints of their personal situation. Surgical training in the early 20th century offered almost imited choice, but it lacked any means of assuring compe any of today’s medical students may prefer specialties that o exible approach to training, which allows them to incorp amily and other professional pursuits. 3 This sentiment has cause oncern about maintaining an adequate surgical workforc 4