Finding Aid to the American Association for Thoracic Surgery Archives, 1917-1967

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Descriptive Summary

Biographical Note

Collection Summary

Index Terms

Administrative Information

Restrictions

Series Descriptions

Historical and Biographical Materials, 1917-1967

Photographs

Annual Meetings and Subject Files, 1914-1977

Correspondence

Biographical Note

Willy Meyer, a New York surgeon, first conceived of a society specifically for thoracic surgery after the poor response he received to a paper he presented at the 1913 American Medical Association meeting. He thought there needed to be a venue where ideas and discussions could be freely exchanged regarding the rapidly growing field of thoracic surgery. His main goal was to create an organization where anyone could contribute and would be welcome, whether they be an internest, radiologist, pathologist or surgeon. Meyer invited 20 local colleagues to his home in February 1917 for the purpose of establishing the New York Society for Thoracic Surgery. With the support of this local society, Meyer thought others from around the U.S. and Canada would be more amenable to forming a national society. That first meeting was a success and later that year, at the American Medical Association meeting, the New York society met with the purpose of forming The American Association for Thoracic Surgery. Fifty men formed the original group. The Society's first constitution was adopted in 1919, and similar associations began to emerge internationally soon thereafter. As the membership expanded over the years, organs for disseminatng professional research were developed, an annual meeting organized, and a movement for sponsoring a board of certification for thoracic surgeons evolved. In 1947 a certification committee voted to establish the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, to be a subsidiary of the American Board of Surgery. The Association later established a research fellowship program to bring foreign surgeons to research facilities in the U.S.

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Collection Summary

Constitution and by-laws, history of the organization, biographical data on founders, correspondence, photographs, proceedings, reports, programs of meetings, and membership data. Among the names prominent in the collection are Ethan Flagg Butler, Nathan W. Green, Rudolph Matas, and Herbert Willy Meyer.

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Restrictions

Restrictions

Collection is not restricted. Contact the Reference Staff for information regarding access. For online customer service, please visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/contacts/custserv-email.html.

Copyright

NLM does possess copyright to the collection. Contact the Reference Staff for details regarding rights. For online customer service, please visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/contacts/custserv-email.html.

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Administrative Information

Prefered Citation

[Call Number, Collection Name, Series Number], Modern Manuscripts Collection, History of Medicine Division, National Library of Medicine, USA.

Provenance

The Archives were a gift of the Association in 1978. Additions to the collection have been made.

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Series Descriptions

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