By: Ahmad Alach, BS, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine
In January of 1924, Dr. William Mayo, one of the seven original founders of Mayo Clinic, traveled to Seattle to attend a medical conference. At this conference, he was seated across a young physician named Dr. John Lundy. Dr. Mayo later wrote: “[Dr. Lundy] interested me immediately in his talk about anesthesia… He said he thought research ought to be done in anesthesia.” By the end of that conversation, Dr. Mayo had offered Dr. Lundy a job at the Mayo Clinic and a position as head of the Section on Anesthesia in the Clinic. Dr. Lundy promptly accepted.
Born in 1894, John Lundy was raised in North Dakota on a farm. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of North Dakota in 1917 and his medical training at Rush Medical College in 1920. After meeting Dr. Mayo and moving to Minnesota, he founded the section of Anesthesiology at Mayo Clinic.2 Despite no office, secretary, or collaborators, he immediately got to work. By 1929, only five years later, 39 papers appeared under his name in various journals, and he had substantially advanced the importance of anesthesiology at Mayo. Despite these accomplishments in his early career, he felt “professionally lonely.” He began dreaming of being a part of a small group of young, ambitious anesthetists who gathered annually to distribute knowledge of this growing specialty. He modeled this idea after the Society of Clinical Surgeons, a group that William and Charles Mayo both helped found. 3 Thus, the Anesthetists’ Travel Club was born.
Upon invitation from Lundy in 1929, fifteen prominent anesthesiologists gathered at Mayo Clinic, where the focus of the meeting was practical demonstrations in the laboratories and operating rooms as opposed to presentation and formal lectures.3 Demonstrations during the first meeting included the action of various anesthetics such as Avertin, propyl, and ethyl alcohol on the intact rabbit heart. In 1934, the sixth meeting included a visit to the New York City police headquarters to listen to a discussion of “Anesthesia used for criminal purposes with case reports.”3 These anesthetists continued meeting year after year, hosted by various members at various institutions.
With time came a very strong professional bond between members of the Club. They supported one another and advocated together for the advancement of anesthesiology. For example, in 1935, Lundy sent letters to several Travel Club members, one of them being Dr. Arthur Guedel, who was a close friend of Lundy’s and a pioneer of anesthesiology at the University of Southern California. In this letter, Lundy asked for support from Guedel, saying that he was told by American Medical Association (AMA) officials that if 25 physicians prominent in the field of anesthesiology would agree to the need for a quarterly publication on anesthesia, the resulting journal would be incorporated into the umbrella structure of the Journal of the American Medical Association.4
Members of the Club also developed a strong personal bond with one another that transcended the professional realm. Drs. Lundy and Guedel maintained correspondence through letters for over two decades, often discussing topics unrelated to their medical practices. After Guedel passed away in 1956, Lundy sent a letter to Guedel’s widow asking for a commemorative synopsis of Guedel’s work and expressing his deep sorrow over the news. In her response, Florence Guedel thanked Lundy for his letter and described the importance of anesthesia and the Travel Club in Guedel’s life. She wrote: “When I was a bride, I was very jealous of a gal named Anesthesia, but I soon learned to respect her realizing that she was going to play a very important part in my life. I found out at the time too that she was almost a child. I watched her grow, develop, and finally attain a maturity which made anesthesia one of the most sought-after, outstanding specialties of medicine.”5
The Travel Club members’ dedication to anesthesiology and innovation was personally rewarding and helped shape the specialty we know and appreciate today. When the American Board of Anesthesiology (ABA) was incorporated in 1938, eight of the nine directors were members of the Travel Club.3 Similarly, over a dozen former members of the Club received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) over the course of their lives.1
A little more than two decades after it was founded, the Travel Club held its final meeting in December of 1952 at Mayo Clinic after the group and the increasingly established specialty of anesthesiology outgrew the 15-30 member limit on annual meetings. At the final meeting, Drs. Lundy and Roland Whitacre drafted a constitution for the new Academy of Anesthesiology, which persists to this day as an outlet for anesthesiology scholarship, teaching, and collaboration.6
The story of the Anesthetists’ Travel Club is a testament to the importance of highly dedicated individuals who are prepared to go above and beyond to modify current molds and systems. In founding the Club, Dr. Lundy was looking for professional support in the early stages of his career, and he found that and much more from his colleagues all over the country who were similarly passionate about advocating for the growing discipline of anesthesiology. In medicine, where much can be improved upon and change can often be slow, it is important to remind ourselves how much farther we can go together rather than alone. The story of the Club reminds us that gatherings in the spirit of professionalism and innovation can promote camaraderie and allow for the formation of profound lifelong bonds.
References
1. Stephen CR. Anaesthetists’ Travel Club, 1929-1952: An Historical Review. St. Louis, MO: Academy of Anesthesiology; 1990
2. Dr. John Silas Lundy. Can Anaesth Soc J. 1973;20(4):595-596.
3. Lennon RL, Bacon DR. The Anaesthetists’ Travel Club: an example of professionalism. J Clin Anesth. 2009;21(2):137-142. doi:10.1016/j.jclinane.2008.06.013
4. Letter from Dr. John S. Lundy to Arthur E. Guedel. Calisphere. July 1935. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81983/s9qk9q/. Accessed July 7, 2023.
5. Letter from Florence Guedel to Dr. John S. Lundy. Calisphere. September 1956. https://calisphere.org/item/ark:/81983/s9bd05/. Accessed January 7, 2023.
6. About the Academy. The Academy of Anesthesiology. https://academyofanesthesiology.org/about.php. Accessed January 7, 2023.