Douglas R. Bacon, M.D., Editor

Lost Luggage

Editor’s Note: I have been involved with the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology (WLM) since 1989 when I was first awarded a WLM Fellowship. I have served on the Board of Trustees since 1996 and as Secretary-Treasurer since 2001. The opinions expressed here are my own and are not those of the WLM or the Board of Trustees or its officers.

here is nothing quite as frustrating as arriving at a destination ready to begin a vacation or a meeting — and then learning that the airlines misplaced your luggage. The History of Anaesthesia Society was meeting in Dundee, Scotland, in late June. It is a two-day meeting, usually with fascinating papers and many dear friends. The trip did not start out well, with a three-hour delay on the ground in Rochester, Minnesota, waiting for thunderstorms to clear at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Connections were tight, and our arrival in Heathrow was two hours behind schedule, which means we missed our scheduled flight to Glasgow. Four hours late, we arrived in Scotland — with none of the luggage! During our stay, rumors of the arrival of one bag occurred. On Saturday, shortly after the close of the meeting, two terrorists drove a truck into the main terminal of Glasgow Airport. Any hope of getting home the next day dimmed, and the luggage seemed lost forever.

In some ways, the history of anesthesiology can be likened to the luggage on my recent trip. The work of the WLM is to preserve our heritage before it is completely lost to time. Named after Paul Meyer Wood, M.D., the first recipient of the ASA Distinguished Service Award (DSA), the WLM serves as an active library and as a repository of the history of anesthesiology — with an emphasis on what has happened in the United States specifically and North America in general. The museum has a gallery with display cases filled with equipment that delineates our shared history. Beginning with a replica of the 1846 Morton Inhaler, through to the last generation of the Ohmeda and Drager anesthesia machines, how anesthesia was administered and how anesthesiologists have made anesthetics safer is there for the entire world to see. A recent innovation created by Honorary Curator George Bause, M.D., and Collections Supervisor Judith Robins, M.A.L.I.S., is a self-guided audio tour. Thus our accomplishments are now available to the general public as well as those who specialize in anesthesia.

One display cabinet is reserved for memorabilia associated with the founder, Paul Wood. Forever immortalized in the library-museum’s name, Dr. Wood’s life has always fascinated me. He was a hero of World War I, having organized an ambulance corps and served on the Italian front. His medals are on display. Also preserved are his DSA citation and a loving cup given to him for his service to the specialty by the Associated Anesthetists of the United States and Canada, an organization that folded into the International Anesthesia Research Society. Dr. Wood never served as president of ASA; rather he toiled as its secretary-treasurer at a time when the Society’s membership grew 10-fold. A founding director of the American Board of Anesthesiology and (no surprise!) its first treasurer, Dr. Wood’s career was one of dedicated service without ever truly seeking the limelight. This dedicated service to the specialty — because it was the right thing to do — has always inspired me.

The library component of the WLM remains the best single source for any publication written on anesthesiology in the 19th or 20th centuries. Many of these references are unique to the WLM — and anything that is not within the confines of the collection can be obtained by interlibrary loan. For ASA members not affiliated with a major medical center or a strong library, the WLM is an attractive alternative for reference needs. A reasonable number of reference requests remain free to ASA members. Even more important in our increasingly electronic age, it is possible to speak with a real person. Librarian Karen Bieterman, M.L.I.S., is an exceptional individual with the right combination of experience and intelligence to make obtaining the reference material painless. As these words are written, the WLM has just hired an assistant librarian, Catlin O’Connor, M.L.I.S., to help with the overflow.

One of the less visible parts of the WLM is its archival collection. As the official repository of ASA documents, it is possible to trace the history of a committee or a position that the Society has taken through the years. Additionally, anesthesiologists have donated their papers, books and memorabilia to the archives. The collected letters of Paul Wood, for example, are a window into the world of anesthesiology from 1930-1963. The collection is varied and rich, covering many eras in anesthesiology history. Each collection received is like a “lost” suitcase returned and a bit of our heritage returned to its home. Earlier this year, an archivist, Felicia Reilly, M.A.L.S., was hired to help organize and preserve our collection. Soon “Finder’s Aids,” documents that delineate the nature and extent of an individual collection, will be on the Web, making the WLM’s collection accessible to scholars who do not wish to travel to Park Ridge, Illinois, to assess it.

The recent addition of two staff members has been possible through both the ongoing, generous support of ASA and the sound financial management of the WLM Board of Trustees. This sound financial backing has allowed new programs to proceed, such as digitizing the rare book collection, a treasure trove of unique material from primarily the 19th century. But the collection also houses documents going back hundreds of years that are connected to the “prehistory” of the discovery of surgical anesthesia in the 1840s. Restoration and cataloging of the museum collection in a digital format also is proceeding. The images of the equipment can then be used by scholars to study how and with what materials the early specialists in our field created a certain apparatus. Posting these images on the Web also will let the world know about our collection and allow for more widespread use.

Yet the rarest gem at the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology is Paul M. Wood Distinguished Librarian Patrick Sim, M.L.S. He has been in his current post for more than 35 years and has watched the WLM grow and prosper over that time. The repository of knowledge within his mind concerning the archives, rare book collection and museum is extraordinary. One of the challenges faced by the WLM Board of Trustees has been transferring this knowledge to paper or electronic files. In the coming year, Mr. Sim and the WLM will publish his annotated bibliography of the rare book collection. This publication will catalog the collection and put into historical context the importance of each item. It will be both a source for historians and a guide to the most important collection of rare anesthesiology references in the world.

So far, like the luggage I checked on that June day in Rochester, all seems well. There are, however, omens present, not dissimilar to the three-hour ground delay on my trip to Scotland. The WLM does not attract corporate sponsorship and thus is far more dependent on ASA funding than the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) or the Foundation for Anesthesia Education and Research (FAER). Outside sponsors intuitively understand the need for research. Patient safety is a “hot button” item at the moment, and APSF has led the specialty and the world of organized medicine in this critical, vital endeavor. Indeed APSF has revolutionized the way in which errors within the practice of medicine are viewed. While corporations understand their obligations to continue research efforts and wish to make safer the world of medicine in which their products and services are used, there is little intrinsic understanding of why the heritage of anesthesiology needs to be preserved.

The WLM endowment is substantial. It is a work in progress, started more than 35 years ago as a way to help support the WLM mission. The money is enough to help with expenses in the short term, but not enough to support the full mission or provide a sizable portion of the budget over the long haul. The Board of Trustees is at a crossroads — should the endowment be spent to support current expenses and leave the future in doubt, or should money be put aside to ensure that the programs of the WLM, such as the Laureate, the fellowships and the Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture, continue in perpetuity along with the myriad other financial responsibilities to which the WLM is committed? Fifteen years ago, the WLM, along with FAER and APSF, was told to seek ways to become financially independent of ASA. Walking an austerity pathway for 10 years, money was laid aside to build the WLM endowment, and some of the exciting programs now beginning were put on indefinite hold. Over the past five years, ASA changed its financial philosophy, requesting that the WLM and other foundations not seek fiscal independence; rather, a “guarantee” from ASA was given that funding would be available and uninterrupted except in the event of a major funding shortfall. This decision has allowed the WLM to slowly ramp up these long-neglected projects. Significant reduction in funding at this point could cause the WLM to retrench, return to the austerity mentality and attempt to mature the endowment to the point where there is no longer financial dependence on ASA. The 2008 ASA budget allocation may begin this decision process definitively for the WLM Board of Trustees.

As we begin our long march through the 21st century and begin to create our second 100 years of history, ASA as a whole, and each anesthesiologist individually, needs to determine what the value of our heritage — and indirectly the WLM — may be. As these words are generated, 80 percent of my luggage has been returned from its Scotland sojourn. The collections of the WLM catalog an ample portion, but not yet 80 percent of our history. We are the best specialty-specific library and museum in the world. Our heritage — and the story of how anesthesiology came to where it now stands, replete with the roads taken and the paths that were not trod — is critical to understanding who we are and what our specialty could possibly become. In many ways, it defines the specialty’s view of professionalism. Furthermore, that heritage can be used to inspire new research ideas, create new initiatives and revive programs, when necessary, that worked in the past.

The WLM guards and protects our heritage, allowing it to be used appropriately. Like all ASA activities, it is a tremendous responsibility gladly taken.

— D.R.B.

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