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Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

Become a Member
Become a member and receive career-enhancing benefits

Our top priority is providing value to members. Your Member Services team is here to ensure you maximize your ACS member benefits, participate in College activities, and engage with your ACS colleagues. It's all here.

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ACS
Awards

Martin Memorial Lecture Presenters

This lecture was established in 1946 to honor Franklin H. Martin, MD, FACS, founder of the American College of Surgeons, and his wife, Isabelle Hollister Martin. Starting in 2008, the Martin Memorial Lecture became the keynote lecture at the Opening Ceremony of the Clinical Congress and is sponsored by the American Urological Association (AUA). The AUA previously sponsored the AUA Lecture scheduled in this time slot.

Nominations for this lecture come from the College’s Honors Committee with consultation by the Advisory Council for Urology.

Year

Lecturer

Lecture Title

2024
Lester Martinez-Lopez
Combat Trauma: Lessons Learned and Future Challenges for Surgery
2023
Gordon L. Telford
Franklin H. Martin, MD, FACS: From Rural Boyhood to Distinguished Surgeon
2022
David B. Hoyt
Reflections
2021
Anthony S. Fauci
COVID-19: Lessons Learned and Remaining Challenges
2020
Norman (Ned) E. Sharpless
Assuring Progress in Cancer Research During Challenging Times
2019
Nina A. Totenberg
The Health of the Supreme Court
2018
Francis S. Collins
NIH: The National Institutes of Hope
2017
David R. Williams
Personal Best: Reflections of a Physician Astronaut on Leadership and Teamwork
2016
Delos M. Cosgrove
Doctors in Distress: The Burnout Crisis
2015
Paul E. Farmer
Addressing Unmet Surgical Need: The Role of Academic Surgery
2014
W. Marston Linehan
Targeting the Genetic and Metabolic Basis of Cancer
2013
David McCullough
Something New, Something Old, With Renewed Force: The Role of History and Innovation in Medicine
2012
Michael R. Harrison
Surgical Innovation=What If + Why Not?
2011
C. David Naylor
Too Big to Fail? Health Care Reform in the U.S. and Canada
2010
Anthony Atala
Regenerative Medicine: New Approaches to Health Care
2009
Glenn D. Steele, Jr.
Re-engineering Systems of Care – Surgical Leadership
2008
Peter Neupert
Translating the Power of Software for Optimal Patient Care
2007
Prof. Sir Richard G.A. Feacham
Fighting the Great Pandemics: Challenges and Opportunities
2006
Catherine DeAngelis
Scientific Conflict of Interest - Facts and Friction
2005
Donald Kennedy
Science and Politics: How Rich a Mixture Do We Want?
2004
Leonard M. Shlain
The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: Brain Lateralization and Its Effect on History, Religion & Gender Relations
2003
Richard L. Cruess
Professionalism, The Profession, and Public Policy
2002
Seymour I. Schwartz
From Mainz to Modem with Martin in the Middle
2001
David B. Hoyt & Donald E. Fry
Unconventional Civilian Disasters: What the Surgeon Should Know
2000
Harold T. Shapiro
High Anxiety: The Interface of Ethics, Biomedicine and Public Policy
1999
Sir Miles Horsfall Irving
Health Technology Assessment: The Way Forward for Surgery
1998
Uwe E. Reinhardt
Who Will “Manage” Health Care in the New Millennium?
1997
Senator William H. Frist
Operating Outside the Theatre: New Challenges for Leadership
1996
Mary-Claire King
From Families with Breast Cancer: Clues for New Therapies
1995
John Rowe
Controlling Health Care Expenditures at the End of Life
1994
Philip Leder
The New Genetics: Hype and Hope
1993
W. French Anderson
Human Gene Therapy
1992
Louis C. Lasagna
Is Medicine the New Dismal Science?
1991
Robert M. Zollinger
Let's Improve Our Image
1990
J. Michael Bishop
Oncogenes: Bench to Bedside
1989
J. W. Marriott, III
Mayo Cares
1988
Albert R. Jonsen
Aesculapius as American Doctor
1987
No Lecture
(Invited lecturer unable to attend.)
1986
C. Rollins Hanlon
The Delusions of Unity
1985
Hon. Jeane Kirkpatrick
(No formal title submitted. The lecture dealt with current U.S.-international relations.)
1984
Eli Ginzberg
American Medicine: The Power Shift
1983
Alistair Cooke
An Hour (or less) of American Medical Humor
1982
A. Bartlett Giamatti
The Role of the Federal Government in Higher Education
1981
Steven Muller
Higher Learning in America: For Whom and for What?
1980
Alton Ochsner
To Our Founder, Franklin H. Martin, with Reflections and Concerns
1979
Hon. Paul Rogers
Government in Health: Too Much or Too Little?
1978
John Lister
Medicine, Politics and Society
1977
Theodore Cooper
Federal Policy and Medical Practice
1976
Alexander Heard
Public Policy and the Paradoxes of Plenty
1975
J. Englebert Dunphy
Look Back for Tomorrow
1974
Rene Dubos
Medical Utopias and the Art of Living
1973
Harry Schwartz
American Medicine after Watergate
1972
Governor Ronald Reagan
Socialized Doctors Have Socialized Patients
1971
Philip Handler
Science and Societal Expectations
1970
Elliot L. Richardson
We Cannot Strive for Anything Less
1969
George W. Beadle
Man's Inheritance: Biological and Cultural
1968
William G. Pollard
The Earth as a Spaceship
1967
Senator Lister Hill
That Magnificent Institution Called Surgery
1966
Howard Pyle
Safety - Preventive Medicine
1965
Alfred M. Gruenther
Where Do We Stand in this Troubled World?
1964
Werner Von Braun
Space - The New Challenge
1963
Lauris Norstad
Atlantic Alliance in Review and Prospect
1962
J. Irwin Miller
Where Do We Go from Here?
1961
Hyman G. Rickover
Education in a Free Society
1960
Wendell M. Stanley
Proved and Prospective Relationships Between Viruses and Cancer
1958
Leroy E. Burney
Physicians for Tomorrow
1957
Hon. Robert Cutler
Fusing Together of Disciplines
1956
Vannevar Bush
Professional Collaboration
1955
Grayson L. Kirk
Current Dilemmas for Doctors and Others
1954
Alan Gregg
Horizons at Half Century
1953
Sir James Paterson Ross
Science and Surgery
1952
Donald C. Balfour
Hippocratic Principles in the Evolution of Gastric Surgery
1951
Paul B. Magnuson
Remove Not the Ancient Landmark
1950
Sir Geoffrey Jefferson
Balance of Life and Death in Cerebral Lesions
1949
Sir James Learmonth
Collateral Circulation, Natural and Artificial
1948
Clarence Craford
Some Aspects of the Development of Intrathoracic Surgery
1947
Allen O. Whipple
Qualifications of the Surgeon and the Cancer Problem
1946
Edward D. Churchill
American Surgeon, A.U.S.