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JOURNAL COMMUNIQUE The Association for Surgical Education and the Journal: A New Partnership This issue contains a lead article by the present executive director of The American Board of Surgery that reflects both his special insights into surgical education and a new and, hopefully, long-lasting relationship between the Journal and The Association for Surgical Education. The modern history of surgical education has been a troubled one. All too often, surgeons have responded to reaffirm their interest in basic educa- tion only when threatened with loss of curricular time. The biggest flurry of activity was mediated through the Whipple Society in the late 196Os, when there was a frontal attack on surgical curricular time, and the data and publications therefrom resulted in significant protection of surgical experience for undergraduate medical students. The Association for Sur- gical Education had a far more altruistic genesis, evolving from informal meetings of individuals who represented the undergraduate student edu- cation coordinators for most American departments of surgery. It was quite clear that this job had become an important one in most academic departments, with a faculty member assuming primary responsibility for coordinating, organizing, and assessing undergraduate education. The Association has grown in stepwise fashion and has had a sequence of vigorous, stimulating, and imaginative meetings. It has provided an inter- esting interface between the clinical teachers and professionals who are legitimately qualified educators, the collective whole having as its goal the optimal education of undergraduate medical students pursuant to their careers in medicine, whether they be in the surgical sciences or unrelated disciplines. It is the editor’s intention that papers on this subject and, particularly the best papers from the annual meeting of The Association for Surgical Education, will appear in each uncommitted issue of the Journal in regular fashion. Our new section on surgical education will become a regular feature, which we hope will further stimulate papers on the subject and interest in the Association. Moreover, it is hoped that this section will foster realization on the part of all concerned of the important progress that has been made in undergraduate education and the continuing need to define the unique role of surgery in the study of medicine as a whole. In addition, it is hoped that this feature will provide information on clerkship standards, which will enable all of our students to have the same solid foundation so as to protect them and their patients across a lifetime. We shall look forward to the response of the readership to this innovation and feel that it is long past due that this important association have represen- tation within the mainstream of surgical publications. Hiram C. Polk, Jr., MD Editor 254 The American Journal of Surgery

The association for surgical education and the journal: A new partnership

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JOURNAL COMMUNIQUE

The Association for Surgical Education and the Journal: A New Partnership This issue contains a lead article by the present executive director of The American Board of Surgery that reflects both his special insights into surgical education and a new and, hopefully, long-lasting relationship between the Journal and The Association for Surgical Education. The modern history of surgical education has been a troubled one. All too often, surgeons have responded to reaffirm their interest in basic educa- tion only when threatened with loss of curricular time. The biggest flurry of activity was mediated through the Whipple Society in the late 196Os, when there was a frontal attack on surgical curricular time, and the data and publications therefrom resulted in significant protection of surgical experience for undergraduate medical students. The Association for Sur- gical Education had a far more altruistic genesis, evolving from informal meetings of individuals who represented the undergraduate student edu- cation coordinators for most American departments of surgery. It was quite clear that this job had become an important one in most academic departments, with a faculty member assuming primary responsibility for coordinating, organizing, and assessing undergraduate education. The Association has grown in stepwise fashion and has had a sequence of vigorous, stimulating, and imaginative meetings. It has provided an inter- esting interface between the clinical teachers and professionals who are legitimately qualified educators, the collective whole having as its goal the optimal education of undergraduate medical students pursuant to their careers in medicine, whether they be in the surgical sciences or unrelated disciplines.

It is the editor’s intention that papers on this subject and, particularly the best papers from the annual meeting of The Association for Surgical Education, will appear in each uncommitted issue of the Journal in regular fashion. Our new section on surgical education will become a regular feature, which we hope will further stimulate papers on the subject and interest in the Association. Moreover, it is hoped that this section will foster realization on the part of all concerned of the important progress that has been made in undergraduate education and the continuing need to define the unique role of surgery in the study of medicine as a whole. In addition, it is hoped that this feature will provide information on clerkship standards, which will enable all of our students to have the same solid foundation so as to protect them and their patients across a lifetime. We shall look forward to the response of the readership to this innovation and feel that it is long past due that this important association have represen- tation within the mainstream of surgical publications.

Hiram C. Polk, Jr., MD Editor

254 The American Journal of Surgery