That standing-room-only session captured something important about Clinical Congress 2026. Surgeons came to Washington, DC, for the clinical science, technical education, research, and hands-on learning that have defined Clinical Congress for generations. They also came to consider the larger forces shaping the profession: changing employment models, workforce shortages, access to surgical care, artificial intelligence, professional autonomy, and the relationship between innovation and human judgment.
Clinical Congress offers something for everyone.
As we designed this year’s meeting, we were intentional about creating an experience that speaks directly to surgeons across specialties, career stages, geographic locations, and practice settings. We wanted to create opportunities to step outside familiar areas and consider ideas and challenges that affect the profession.
A well-attended session on locum tenens practice offered another example. The discussion was not limited to surgeons already practicing as locums or to those working in rural communities. It considered career flexibility, continuity and quality of care, workforce shortages, and the role temporary surgical coverage may play in communities that struggle to recruit or retain surgeons. Those questions are relevant to individual surgeons, department leaders, health systems, and patients.
Another important initiative launched at Clinical Congress made the workforce conversation more concrete: the ACS Surgical Workforce Mapping Tool.
Developed with the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the tool maps the distribution of surgeons across 12 specialties and every US county. The study underlying it identified 1,180 counties, home to 15.1 million people, with no identified general surgeon, and 951 counties, representing 9.6 million people, with no identified surgeon in any of the 12 specialties examined.
A map alone cannot tell us whether every community has the surgical care it needs. It does not measure operative capacity, patients’ travel time, local disease burden, or the services an individual surgeon provides. But it gives us a stronger evidence base from which to ask the right questions.
This is advocacy as well as research. These data can guide investments in surgical training and support for surgeons in underserved communities, with the goal of improving patients’ access to care.
Clinical Congress also challenged us to think differently about innovation.
In the Martin Memorial Lecture, Ralph V. Clayman, MD, FACS, used his experience helping to perform the first laparoscopic nephrectomy to explore curiosity, creativity, collaboration, and innovation. Although his clinical story originated in urology, his message applied to every surgeon in the room.
He reminded us that creativity begins with the willingness to ask why and sometimes why not. Innovation requires more than a good idea; it requires people with complementary talents who can develop and implement it. In his words, innovation is a team sport.
His reflections on artificial intelligence (AI) were equally timely. AI can absorb extraordinary quantities of information and help us move faster, but it cannot wonder. It does not possess human experience, empathy, or curiosity. Dr. Clayman encouraged us to treat AI as an adjunct rather than an adversary. AI can be a powerful collaborator that extends human creativity rather than replaces it.
Surgeons need opportunities both to consider what emerging technology will mean for the future of our profession and to understand what they can use responsibly today. That combination of long-range thinking and practical application is one of the distinctive strengths of Clinical Congress.
We saw the same breadth in our invited speakers. US Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson brought a perspective from outside surgery but from a profession that intersects with medicine in consequential ways, from questions of professional responsibility to the laws and institutions that shape how we care for patients. She reflected on mentorship, perseverance, and the discipline required to navigate disagreement without becoming disagreeable. Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH, FACS, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, examined the healthcare landscape, low-value care, and the root causes of illness. Monica M. Bertagnolli, MD, FACS, president of the National Academy of Medicine and former director of the National Institutes of Health, considered how geography, health data, artificial intelligence, and trust influence whether scientific progress reaches every patient and community.
These different voices offered insights relevant to how surgeons lead, make decisions, understand the healthcare environment, and care for patients. Clinical Congress should provide room for precisely that kind of intellectual range.
At the same time, Clinical Congress remains rooted in the relationships and traditions that have sustained the House of Surgery for generations. We welcomed 2,118 new Fellows from 88 countries.
Colleagues reconnected with mentors, met future collaborators, exchanged ideas across specialties, and welcomed new generations into the profession. More than 300 sessions provided clinical education, scientific research, skills training, multidisciplinary discussion, and professional development. The on-demand library will allow registrants to continue exploring sessions and other content they could not experience in person.
Clinical Congress is older than the ACS itself. In 1910, Franklin H. Martin, MD, invited physicians to Chicago to learn from leading surgeons. He expected perhaps 200 attendees; approximately 1,300 came. That remarkable response helped lead to the founding of the ACS 3 years later.
Across more than a century, Clinical Congress has adapted through extraordinary changes in science, surgical practice, and the world around us. The work of learning from one another and improving patient care has continued.
That history reminds us that tradition and evolution are not opposites. Clinical Congress has endured precisely because it has continued to change while preserving its essential purpose.
We are already applying what we learned in Washington as we prepare for Clinical Congress 2027 in San Diego, California. We will continue to make the experience more interactive, more responsive to emerging needs, and more connected before, during, and after the meeting. We will preserve the traditions that unite generations of surgeons while creating new formats, new conversations, and new opportunities to engage.
The value of Clinical Congress extends well beyond the days we spend together. Registrants can continue learning through the online Meeting Platform, revisiting sessions they attended and exploring selected presentations, posters, and videos they may have missed through February 22, 2027.
I hope you will use that opportunity to return to an idea that challenged you, discover something new, or find a resource that strengthens your practice. And then I hope you will join us in San Diego, when the House of Surgery will come together again to learn from one another, strengthen our community, and help shape what comes next.
