Jan G. van den Tweel – Pioneers in Pathology

Автор: Jan G. van den Tweel
Название книги: Pioneers in Pathology
Формат: PDF
Тема: Патология
Страницы: 580
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

It is amazing how easy it sometimes is to become regarded as an expert in a certain area of competency. This happened to me a decade ago. As a frequent participant of the USCAP, I always tried to attend the companion meetings of the History of Pathology Society. In 2006 the secretary, the late Allan Tucker, surprised me when I entered the meeting room, by saying that he had forgotten to tell me that I was in that meeting going to be elected as incoming president of the society. My protest against this surprise move was of no avail. “All I had to do was to organize the meeting for 2008,” he said. That meeting about Famous Europeans who shaped Pathology attracted an audience exceeding the room capacity and resulted in several requests for extensive summaries of the lectures. As a consequence, I was asked to organize symposia on the History of Pathology at several IAP and ESP congresses.
Around that time, also the idea for an Encyclopedia of Pathology was born and the series editor proposed that historical persons as well as other aspects of pathology should be covered. In 2009, he asked me to edit this part. Suddenly, I found that I was considered to be an expert in the field in which I did not consider myself to be a true expert. Nevertheless, after ample consideration I accepted the invitation. Initially, the idea was to cover approximately 140 entries that were proposed by a large group of interested colleagues who wanted to participate in the project. However, 6 years later only 107 entries had been written and I made the decision to leave it for what it was when the publishing deadline arrived. I felt that a few names more or less in an enormous compendium of 15–20 books would not be a major issue.
The situation changed dramatically when Springer in 2015 decided to start publishing the encyclopedia as different subspecialist volumes. The publication of a volume with the title Pioneers of Pathology required an almost complete coverage of persons considered for this prestigious title. Early in 2016, I approached the members of the History of Pathology Society and of ESP working group History of Pathology to supply me with additional names. Only deceased persons, or living persons over 80 years of age, could be included. This request resulted in approximately 100 additional names. Nearly, all these suggested names are now covered in this revised volume. This practical development is the reason why some people are covered in this book, while others are not. However, the advantage of this encyclopedia is that the content is not something static but fluid; new names can be added in the course of time.
The completion of this volume was very complicated, but thanks to the efforts of many colleagues, some of them already a pioneer in their field, and the help of dedicated Springer staff, we did the job within a year. I owe all of them a lot.
Retrospectively, after reading through the lives and performances of so many men and women who shaped pathology (and of course medicine), I regretted the fact that I never had a book like this on my shelves earlier in my life. The amazing things these pioneers achieved are very instructive for understanding numerous diseases and made me feel very humble.