The Social and Emotional World of Twentieth-Century Anglo-American Surgery: The James IV Association of Surgeons.

Abstract

summaryFounded in 1957 by a group of elite British and American surgeons, the James IV Association of Surgeons is an international organization that "promotes communication among surgeons across the globe." Every year since 1961, the association has funded trips for several "surgical travellers" to encourage "exchange and camaraderie between surgical communities." This article uses the association's archive to explore the social lives, professional identities, and affective experiences of the men and women who populated the "surgical world" of Britain and North America in the mid-twentieth century. Integrating the social history of medicine with emotions history, I argue that the social lives of surgeons were crucial to the development and maintenance of their professional identities and communities by assisting in the definition of what it meant to be a surgeon. This definition was structured not just by surgical skill but by the forms of sociability available to potential participants.