From Couinaud to molecular biology: the seven virtues of hepato-pancreato-biliary surgery

Abstract

It is an immense honour and a privilege to serve as President at the 12th Annual Meeting of the Americas Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association (AHPBA). This presentation is dedicated to those young and old who continue to be passionate students of hepato-pancreato-biliary (HPB) disorders. The talk is a tribute to Claude Couinaud, a French surgeon, and his passion for liver anatomy (Fig. 1). It is also about the crossroads between his and our passion for HPB surgery. In trying to identify the best term to describe these seven crossroads between Couinaud's world and today's world, I first thought of using the terms essentials, principles or reasons, but they sounded too detached and impersonal. I also considered using the terms passions, loves or elations, but I found them to be too emotional. So I chose the term virtues, which is used in ancient and modern philosophy, in psychology, and in many religious traditions (Table 1). Figure 1 Claude Couinaud working with his collection of liver casts at the school of medicine in Paris, 1988. Reprinted with permission from Sutherland and Harris (2002)3 Table 1 The seven virtues of HPB surgery