AAO-HNS Bulletin | Special Edition | January 2021

ENTNET.ORG/BULLETIN AAO-HNS BULLETIN SPECIAL EDITION: 125TH ANNIVERSARY 19 TheAnnual Meeting as the Backbone of Our Guiding Principles Daniel C. Chelius, Jr., MD, AAO-HNSF Annual Meeting Program Coordinator A s we approach the 125th Anniversary AAO-HNSF Annual Meeting & OTO Experience, I am struck by how much the sentiments and motivations of our founders and leaders about this meeting ring as true today as they have in every era for more than a century. While each generation has overcome unique challenges in terms of communication, technology and physical space, education platforms, geopolitics, and socioeconomics, the guiding principles have remained the same—to elevate care for all through widely accessible education and critically debated scientific inquiry, to support one’s fellow surgeon both professionally and personally, and in essence, to define who we are as a profession. It all started with a meeting In 1896 when Dr. Hal Foster sent out invitations to the first meeting of our Academy’s precursor, the Western Society of Eye, Ear, Throat and Nose Surgeons, at the Midland Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, he wasn’t addressing a society, an academy, or any other organization. He was writing to 500 geographically separate and often professionally isolated physicians. Many had common roots in medical education and had pursued similar sorts of postgraduate study in universities and hospitals along the East Coast or in Europe. There is some historic debate, but 35-50 physicians representing 27-35 states attended that first meeting. While we must credit Dr. Foster for the initial spark of genius to unite this group around medical science and ongoing education, we must equally credit each of these doctors for stepping forward to literally become the body of the Society. Taking that trip to Kansas City was as critical to the Academy in 1896 as is the commitment 125 years later to bracket time away from our practices and home lives to come together for the same goals. As we add our presence and effort to the AAO- HNSF mission, particularly at the Annual Meeting, the concept of “The Academy” solidifies. It shifts from being a commonly referenced but abstract structure in our field to the embodiment of the combined efforts Original 1896 programs 1918 Annual Meeting 1921 Annual Meeting banquet