History of anaesthesia: Overview

Papua New Guinea is a Pacific country that remains an enigma to the world at large. Despite massive geographical challenges due to mountainous terrain, remote islands, poverty, and with 80% of the population of over eight million living in rural villages, Papua New Guinea has managed to develop national medical and postgraduate specialty training. The first recorded anaesthetic was administered in Papua New Guinea in 1880 and the first anaesthetist trained in 1968. The University of Papua New Guinea graduated its first diploma in anaesthesia candidate in 1986 and its first master of medicine candidate in anaesthesiology in 1991. As of December 2021, there have been 82 diplomas and 40 masters of medicine awarded. We review the factors and influences bearing on the development of physician anaesthesia training in Papua New Guinea over this period. Many of the people involved have contributed information used in this article.

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.