Academia Argentina de Cirugía Presidential Address

It is a great honor and an enormous responsibility to have been elected president of such a prestigious institution as the Academia Argentina de Cirugía by my peers, and I am deeply grateful for this nomination. This academy was created almost 112 years ago at a very particular historical moment in our country (a rich and migrant-receiving country). Buenos Aires was a thriving, cosmopolitan city with important medical advances. It was in this context that a group of surgeons, led by Dr. Daniel Cranwell, gathered at his home to found the Sociedad de Cirugía de Buenos Aires, the first association of surgeons in Argentina. Later, in 1939, it became Academia Argentina de Cirugía, following the guidelines of the French Academy of Surgery. However, for political reasons, it was forced to return to its original name in 1954, and it was not until 1969 that it took on its current name.