The Society of Black Academic Surgeons can trace its origin to a historic meeting in New Orleans, LA in October of 1987. Present at that meeting were Drs. Arthur Fleming, Claude Organ, Onye Akwari, Eddie Hoover, and Steve Aichele of Davis and Geck. This meeting was arranged to address the role of African-American surgeons in academic surgery. It was abundantly clear that few blacks were involved in academic surgery, there was no organized network of African-American academic surgeons, few young surgeons pursing academic careers received tenure, and graduates from surgery residency programs other than Meharry or Howard could not easily identify African-American surgeons role models to inspire them to pursue academic careers.
At this inaugural meeting an organization dedicated to promoting more active participation in academic surgery among African-Americans was born and christened as The Society of Black Academic Surgeons. The anagrams “SBAS” by which the organization is commonly referred was contributed by Arthur Fleming, the first president of SBAS.
