The Plight of Children

The opportunity to serve in a leadership role in this unique professional organization has been a very rewarding experience. I am extremely fortunate to have had the privilege to be the President of the American Surgical Association—the oldest and most revered surgical society in our country. I am grateful for your confidence and the honor to serve in this capacity. It has been the highlight of my professional career. I have been blessed in many ways: to grow up in an intact family and have the guidance and support of concerned and loving parents as a youngster and the love and constant companionship of my wife Margie who embraced my goals as her own and stood by my side with unwavering faith and support for the past 45 years, and let me follow my star. We were blessed with 5 wonderful and loving children who learned to share their dad with literally thousands of other children that I had the privilege of caring for as a pediatric surgeon. They and their mates have provided an additional joy in our life: our 16 beautiful grandchildren. I also had the good fortune of training under 2 exceptionally gifted teachers that played an important role in paving the path for my career as an academic surgeon, and I would like to briefly recognize each of them. Professor Frank C. Spencer, my Chairman in General Surgery (and a previous President of this organization) when I was a resident at New York University [NYU]and the late H. William Clatworthy Jr., my Chief in Pediatric Surgery at the Columbus Children’s Hospital, Ohio State University (also a member of this organization). Each had a special influence on my career as teacher, counselor, mentor, and friend. Dr. Spencer also gave me my first job as a faculty member at NYU. I would also like to recognize the late Dr. John E. Jesseph, the Chairman of Surgery at Indiana University who recruited me to Indianapolis 35 years ago to begin the children’s surgical program and whom I succeeded as Chairman of Surgery after his untimely death. I would also like to thank my students, residents, and colleagues at Indiana University and the many close and dear friends in surgery that I have worked with over the years for their friendship and support. One of the more daunting responsibilities of the Presidency is presenting an address at the annual meeting of the Association. This has been accomplished by many of the giants in the field of surgery who have served before me as President of this organization. My friend, Past President Carlos Pellegrini, kindly provided me with a collection of all the prior Presidential addresses for my perusal in preparing this talk. I read many of them, and for the most part, they are outstanding treatises covering a wide array of educational, clinical, technical, economic, association-oriented, historical, and other timely health care topics. After careful consideration, I decided to talk about something different, a subject I am best prepared to discuss: the care of children. For the past 40 years I have had the opportunity and privilege to provide surgical care for infants and children. While it has been a wonderful experience and there have been significant advances in care and admirable improvements in survival, to some extent children remain a disadvantaged group within both society and the overall health care scheme. It is because of these concerns I would like to share my thoughts with you regarding the plight of children. Plight is defined in the dictionary as “a condition or situation of difficulty or adversity.” It is derived from the old English term “plithen” meaning “imperiled or compromised.”