The American Medical Association's Section on Surgery: The Beginnings of the Organization, Professionalization, and Specialization of Surgery in the United States.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: To explore the founding of the American Medical Association's Section on Surgery in 1859 and how it represented, on a national basis, the beginnings of organized surgery and the formal start of the professionalization and specialization of surgery in the United States. BACKGROUND: The broad social process of organization, professionalization, and specialization that began for various disciplines in America in the mid-19th century was a reaction to emerging economic, political, and scientific influences including industrialization, urbanization, and technology. For surgeons or, at least, those men who performed surgical operations, the efforts toward group organization provided a means to promote their skills and restrict competition. METHODS: An analysis of the published literature, and unpublished documents relating to the creation of the American Medical Association's Section on Surgery. RESULTS: During the 1850s and through the 1870s, a time when surgery was still not considered a separate branch of medicine, the organization of the American Medical Association's Section on Surgery provided the much needed encouragement to surgeons in their quest for professional and specialty recognition. CONCLUSIONS: The establishment of the American Medical Association's Section on Surgery in 1859 helped shape the nationwide future of the craft, in particular, surgery's rise as a specialty and profession.