History of anaesthesia: Overview

The Presidential Address of the outgoing President of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists (ASA) was renamed the Geoffrey Kaye Oration in 1986 after the first and longest serving Secretary of the Society.1 The development of the specialty of anaesthesia in Australia benefitted from his ‘unique talents in research, teaching and organisation’, which were accompanied by his ‘dedication and capacity for hard and unremitting work’.2
On 19 January 1934, Geoffrey Kaye (1903–1986) and six other men stepped away from the Fourth Australasian Medical Congress of the British Medical Association to Hadley’s Hotel in Hobart and founded the ASA. This was undoubtedly a challenging time for the specialty but very much a cherished moment. This event created the fourth medical organisation in Australia and a split from the British Medical Association. Anaesthesia had been overlooked and not included in the initial scientific program of the Congress. This step, of forming a separate anaesthesia organisation, marked in Australia that anaesthesia, ‘for so long merely the handmaiden of surgery, was now itself a science and an art and for its practice there must be training and teaching’ and it would be the newly formed ASA which would steer this course.2
Since that day in 1934, the Annual General Meeting of the ASA has almost always been held in conjunction with the National Scientific Congress (NSC). Annual General Meetings and Congresses mark time for organisations such as ours. Whilst reflecting on the Congresses that have marked my time as President, there are two moments that I would like to share with you today.
The first is the 2019 NSC in Sydney, convened by Dr Anne Jaumees. During the NSC a colleague asked me what number female President of the ASA I would be. As I had been in an Acting President role for a good part of the year, I was embarrassed that I didn’t know the answer, but I quickly looked it up. Five. I am the fifth woman to be President of the Australian Society of Anaesthetists and the 46th President.

Anesthesiology reflections from the Wood Library-Museum.