Neurosurgical Continuing Medical Education

摘要

When discussing neurosurgical continuing medical edu-V V cation, it should be noted that the meeting where this paper was originally presented is one of the crown jewels of neurosurgical education. The annual meetings of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons continue to serve neurosur-geons and their patients well. They are the primary vehicles by which we fulfill our obligation to gain contemporary knowledge for the benefit of those entrusted to our care. It may be hard to imagine that things were not always like this. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that surgery became more successful and its true importance recognized, leading William Halsted to institute a surgical training program at Johns Hopkins that laid the groundwork for the future of American surgical science. Halsted's efforts led directly to Harvey Gushing and the origin of American neurosurgery. Neurosurgery, however, began slowly and its wasn't until 1919, when following an address by Gushing at the meeting of the American College of Surgeons on his remarkable experience with brain tumors, that William Mayo publicly declared that a new specialty had been born. To this point, neurosurgery was a lonely and isolated field, practiced by only a very few pioneers who had been groping their way beset with difficulties that one can only imagine today. Craniotomies were performed and frequently tumors were not found. There were few young men with sufficient courage to embark upon a specialty where the results were so discouraging and that seemed to offer so little chance of success. Spurred by his reception at the College meeting, Gushing suggested to Ernest Sachs of St.