Thoracic Surgeons in the Forefront
The Royal College of Surgeons of England has inadvertently put thoracic surgery ahead of cardiac surgery in its Bulletin. A headline concerning the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland (alongside the ever smiling face of its President Sir Bruce Keogh) abbreviates the society to STCS rather than the intended SCTS.
The headline from the Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons of England:
I called Sir Bruce (President of SCTS GB&I); it is not that he has negotiated a change in the name of the British and Irish organisation. It was an error somewhere in the editing process. However it is amusing, maybe more to me than to Bruce. Is it perhaps a Freudian slip? The Viennese father of psycho-analysis Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) attributed such errors to the unconscious mind bringing out hidden truths.
Could it be that the Thoracic Committee of EACTS brings Professor Bruce Keogh (also the Secretary General of EACTS) under such pressure that Thoracic Surgery is in the forefront of his mind?
It is good to find a humorous side to events which are somewhat embarrassing to many serious minded European thoracic and cardiac surgeons. The world knows that after five years of highly successful joint EACTS/ESTS meetings the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons will meet separately this year in Leuven, Belgium and the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery will meet in Geneva, Switzerland. Make what you will of it - but is there something about names that rankles with a group of surgeons who do not operate on the heart?
"What's in a name?” wrote Shakespeare for Romeo and Juliet “That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet."
When the American Association for Thoracic Surgery was formed in 1917 the notion of operating on the heart was regarded as crazy and when that new fangled idea arrived, initially hesitantly in the 1920s but remorselessly in the 1940s, the AATS regarded the heart as just one of the organs within its domain. The Society of Thoracic Surgeons has followed the same convention.
The British organisation was founded as the Society of Thoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1933 and has changed its name twice I believe. For a while it was thoracic and cardiovascular. I suppose it might change again along the lines inadvertently proposed by Sir Bruce.
I have written before about the commitment of EACTS to surgeons (and thus to the patients in their care) whether their training and practice is combined or exclusively thoracic or cardiac. I echo Shakespeare – what’s in a name?
Nevertheless there is a rhetoric in words and little prepositions can subtly introduce strong messages. Note that some organizations are “of” surgeons and others “for” surgery. Bob Replogle has written about parsing.
I wonder will he put his mind to this one. It’s far too obscure and insubstantial for me to draw anything from it.