he Anesthesia History Association (AHA) sponsors an annual contest for the best essay on the history of anesthesia, pain medicine or intensive care. This contest is open to residents and fellows in anesthesiology. The contest has several goals in addition to the obvious one of promoting interest in the history of anesthesia. Other goals include advancing professionalism in the specialty, affording residents and fellows the chance to present their research in anesthesia history at a national meeting and the opportunity for that research to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.

C. Ronald Stephen, M.D., at McGill University, 1940.

The Resident Essay Contest is named for C. Ronald Stephen, M.D., an anesthesiologist who was a revered teacher, researcher, anesthesia history enthusiast and clinician. Dr. Stephen died at age 90 in 2006. The Resident Essay Contest was begun by Doris K. Cope, M.D., a past president of AHA and long-time member of the AHA Council. From the beginning, Dr. Stephen was an enthusiastic supporter and participant in the Resident Essay Contest. He participated as a judge of residents’ essays until the year before his death. He worked tirelessly to make the Resident Essay Contest a dynamic part of the programs offered by AHA.

Residents wishing to enter the contest must submit their essays by September 10 of the year in which they are to be considered. If not received by that date, they will be considered for the next year’s contest.

The essays must be written in English and be approximately 3,000 to 5,000 words in length. Judging will take place in two stages. In the first stage, finalists will be chosen. These finalists will be announced at the AHA meeting during the ASA Annual Meeting in October. From these finalists, the winners will be chosen on the basis of both content and delivery during the spring meeting of the Anesthesia History Association. All finalists will present their papers in an AHA session attended by a panel of judges. This panel will make its final decision based on originality, appropriateness of topic, quality of research and delivery. Because the final judging will be at the time of the presentation at the AHA spring meeting, all who enter must agree to attend the meeting at which the presentations are made.

The first-, second- and third-place winners receive $500, $200 and $100 awards, respectively. Awards will be made during the AHA spring meeting. The three winners are required to submit their essays to the peer-reviewed Bulletin of Anesthesia History for publication.  

Recently I was surprised when a prospective resident essayist asked me, “Who was C. Ronald Stephen, for whom the Resident Essay Contest is named?” I was surprised because I knew Dr. Stephen from the time I entered the specialty of anesthesiology. I met him when I was a resident and spoke to him for the last time a few days before he died. For those who did not have the good fortune to know him, here are some of the facts of his life.

Ron Stephen was born in 1916 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He graduated from McGill University in Montreal in 1938 with a Bachelor of Science degree and with a Doctor of Medicine in 1940. His interest in anesthesiology developed while serving in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps from 1942 until 1946. While on active duty in the Army Medical Corps, he was assigned to a three-month training program in anesthesiology conducted in Montreal.

After World War II, Dr. Stephen began his career in anesthesiology at the Montreal Neurological Institute and then moved to the Children’s Memorial Hospital in Montreal. In 1950, Dr. Stephen accepted an invitation to become Professor and Chief of the Division of Anesthesia at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. He remained in that position until 1966. During his stay there, he established an anesthesiology residency program and promoted the then new concept of physician anesthesia at Duke University. The next chapter in his life in anesthesiology was at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas, where he was chief of anesthesia at a pediatric hospital on the medical school campus for a five-year interval.

In 1970, Dr. Stephen was recruited to become chairman and Mallinckrodt Professor of Anesthesiology in a new department at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He continued in that role until stepping down in 1981, as he had reached the mandatory retirement age of 65. For the next five years, he worked as head of a private practice anesthesiology group.

At age 70, he stopped doing clinical practice but continued an active involvement as a Trustee of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology, editor of the Bulletin of Anesthesia History and member of the AHA Council. In addition he served as a judge for the Resident Essay Contest since its inception. He could always be counted on to provide clear, insightful reviews and to be a fair judge of every essay. If an article was not very good, he would point out the problems in his review; but when the contest was over, he would add, “Have this chap call me if he needs some help in revising this paper.” That statement spoke volumes about Ron Stephen. He loved teaching, whether it was teaching clinical anesthesia or medical history. He had the magic touch in helping people to understand concepts and procedures.

Dr. Stephen received many honors during his life. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the American College of Anesthesiologists, was an associate examiner with the American Board of Anesthesiology and, in 1981, he received the ASA Distinguished Service Award. It is appropriate to have the Resident Essay Contest named after him. It involves many things in which he was interested: teaching, anesthesia history, scholarship and the integration of young people into the specialty of anesthesiology.

The career of Dr. C. Ronald Stephen was an exemplary model of how to have a rewarding life in the medical specialty of anesthesiology. Because of his exceptional contributions to the Resident Essay Contest, AHA is pleased to name the Resident Essay Contest for him. Contributions to the endowment to fund the C. Ronald Stephen Resident Essay Contest can be sent to: Anesthesia History Association, UPMC St. Margaret Pain Medicine Center, 200 Delafield Road, Suite 2070, Pittsburgh, PA 15215.

Residents wishing to enter the contest should contact me at whammonds@MCG.edu.

William D. Hammonds, M.D., M.P.H., is Professor, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia. He is also President of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology Board of Trustees.