Surgical News | Volume 21 | Issue 05
100 years ago and it became a discussion about the authority and influence of the British Medical Association (BMA), to which all the delegates belonged. It effectively stymied Barnett’s idea of an independent organisation open to all surgeons.
The 11th Australasian Medical Congress was held in Brisbane in October 1920. At the session of the Surgical Section it was proposed that a surgical association be established in Australia and New Zealand, with the aims of raising and maintaining surgical standards and accrediting surgeons by means of Fellowship.
George Syme expressed deep concern about the suitability of such an association as proposed by Barnett. Henry Newland called Barnett’s proposal ‘a dagger in the heart of the BMA’. Hugh Devine lamented that the debate had become an argument about the BMA, rather than about improving surgical standards. Ralph Worrall noted that American and Australian situations varied considerably, and there should be no attempt to follow an American model. The discussion became somewhat acrimonious, but eventually ‘Dr Craig’s amendment was carried by a large majority.’ Barnett’s proposal had failed,
but the seed had been planted, and over the next few years it took root. Nearly all those involved in the discussion at the Congress became Founders of the College. Syme was knighted in 1924, was a signatory to the Foundation Letter in 1925, and was elected first president of the College in 1927. Newland was knighted in 1928, and became second president of the College on the death of Sir George Syme in 1929. Barnett was knighted in 1927, and became fourth president in 1937. Devine, the real driving force behind the formation of the College, became its fifth president in 1939. He had been knighted in 1936. Hamilton Russell became the first censor-in-chief. In 1931, Gordon Craig bequeathed the sum of £60,000 (about $2.4 million today) to establish the Library. But in 1920, this was all in the future.
The proposer was Louis Barnett, Professor of Surgery at the University of Otago. Barnett favoured a system like the one developed by the recently founded American College of Surgeons (1912). (This American bias may be the reason Barnett was referred to in the proceedings as Professor at the University of Chicago.) In the event, Barnett was unable to travel to Brisbane to present his proposal, and so the eminent Melbourne surgeon R. Hamilton Russell did it for him. Balcombe Quick seconded the motion. Debate on the motion followed. Almost immediately an amendment was proposed by R. Gordon Craig: ‘That, with a view to the advancement of the science and art of teaching surgery in Australasia, the members of this Section favour the formation of a section of surgery in each Branch of the British Medical Association in Australia and New Zealand.’ Debate then turned to this amendment,
Top left: Dr. R Hamilton Russell. Above: Professor Louis Barnett
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