Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland
The Travelling Surgical society of Great Britain and Ireland is a group of surgeons from around the United Kingdom that travels to various hospitals and surgical departments around the world and in the UK. Academic and clinical meetings encourage educational and surgical exchanges.
The current membership consists of about fifty surgeons of whom thirty are in active practice. The society has always maintained strong links to military surgery Twelve of the active members are Professors of Surgery, demonstrating that we place great emphasis on academic content in our meetings. We offer two travelling fellowships each year.
Update – January 2023:
The Travelling Surgical Society of Great Britain and Ireland is pleased to invite applications for the 2023 Price Thomas Travelling Fellowships
The holders of the 2023 award will have the option to travel to Cork with the Travelling Surgical Society in May 2023 (19th-26th) for our overseas meeting or Guernsey in September (7-9) for our home meeting. Fellows will deliver at least two papers at scientific meetings in University Hospitals during the visit. The bursary will cover registration fees, travelling expenses, hotel costs and all organised meals.
Further information can be obtained from the Honorary Secretary, Mr Graham Sunderland, e-mail gtsunderland@gmail.com
Our organisation was founded in 1924 by a group of British surgeons who had worked in France during the First World War in the Casualty Clearing Stations of the Royal Army Medical Corps. Meeting surgeons from elsewhere they realised that British surgery was somewhat isolated from that of other countries. To remedy this they formed the Travelling Surgical Club, the object of which was to travel every year to a foreign country and meet colleagues with whom they could share knowledge and exchange opinions. This idea was warmly supported by Sir Berkeley (later Lord) Moynihan, President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, who agreed to become the Club’s first President.
In those early days, members had to have served in the Armed Forces. Between the Wars, fourteen trips were made to seven different countries. Two home centres in the UK were also visited. An account of each meeting, particularly the scientific sessions, is produced as a historical record in an annual Report: sometimes our hosts are surprised at what we know of their predecessors! Following the Second World War, the Club re-formed as before. Sir Clement Price Thomas (a pioneer thoracic surgeon, who operated on King George VI) became its President in 1952.
The Academic Meetings
We usually hold one meeting at a centre of excellence abroad in May. We spend a day at three or more hospitals; the programme includes a mutual presentation of scientific/clinical papers. In 1958 a visit to the home centre of a member was added, and this became customary each autumn. We particularly value the presence of medical students and junior doctors, from whom we get the flavour of modern surgical training. Our presentations include topics and research of current clinical interest and also the funding and delivery of surgical care, matters of competence and training, the use of teaching techniques, audit and governance, as well as subjects of perennial interest, including the history of surgery itself – in short, anything that touches remotely on the modern practice of surgery!
Membership
The membership of the Society consists of about 25 active members in surgical practice, many with a gastro-intestinal, vascular, urological or plastic interest. Our Members are a mix of academic and clinical surgeons from teaching / university and district hospitals all over Britain. Currently we do not have an orthopaedic or a neuro-surgeon. We also have surgeons from the Armed Services with wide experience of the management of trauma, some of it from conflicts such as the Falklands, Gulf War, Bosnia and Afghanistan.