Since the founding of the ACS in 1913, each Clinical Congress has included Convocation. The ceremony has the central purpose of inducting each year’s new cohort of Fellows of the ACS, presenting Honorary Fellowships and other awards, and installing each year’s President and officers. The event has been a high point in the careers of many surgeons.
This year, the ACS will hold Convocation on Saturday, October 4, starting at 5:45 pm.
The ceremony will initiate 2,122 new Fellows from the US, Canada, and 91 other countries.
Additionally, seven surgeons from Europe, Asia, and North America will become Honorary Fellows of the ACS on the 108th occasion that the College has granted the distinction. This will bring the total of Honorary Fellowships granted by the ACS to 525, with the first given in 1913 to William Stewart Halsted, MD, FACS(Hon) (1852-1922), who is widely known as the Father of American Surgery.
Convocation also will include the presentation of two prestigious awards. The Distinguished Service Award is the highest award granted by the ACS and is given in recognition of outstanding service to the College and surgery. This year’s awardee is Marshall Z. Schwartz, MD, FACS, a professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
In addition, Anna Marie Ledgerwood, MD, FACS, a professor of surgery at Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, will receive the Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Inspiring Women in Surgery Award, in recognition of her groundbreaking career.
The Wangensteen Scientific Forum Award, which in previous years was presented during Convocation, now will be conferred at the Owen H. Wangensteen Scientific Forum (SF200), which will be held Monday morning, October 6.
Convocation will culminate in the installation of Anton N. Sidawy, MD, MPH, FACS, as the 2025-2026 ACS President. Dr. Sidawy is a vascular surgeon at George Washington University in Washington, DC, who is a past member of the Board of Governors, a past member and Vice-Chair of the Board of Regents, and a stalwart champion of the Metropolitan Washington, DC, ACS chapter.
At Convocation, Dr. Sidawy will deliver his Presidential Address, sharing his leadership vision for his presidency year. He has chosen the theme “The House of Surgery: Home for All Surgeons.”
“The ACS is a big organization that can help us with things that the magnitude of which and the infrastructure of which we cannot find in our individual specialties,” he has remarked in explanation of his theme, naming quality improvement, advocacy, and professional development as areas in which surgeon unity is potent source of influence.
All Clinical Congress attendees can attend Convocation in person or watch it live via the ACS website. After the Convocation ceremony, all attendees and their family members are welcome to attend the Windy City Welcome Reception in the Marriott Marquis Hotel.
