ABC Travelling Fellowship, Oxford
The first ABC Fellowship was the innovation of Professor R. I. Harris, Chief of Orthopaedics in Toronto and President of the American Orthopaedic Association in 1948. The Second World War had created great destruction, but it was a time of innovation in orthopaedics. There had been a great exchange of ideas between surgeons brought together to treat the casualties, but in the period of economic re-building and austerity that followed, that contact was lost.
The stated aim of the fellowship was to give a group of promising young surgeons the opportunity to travel to North America and visit major orthopaedic centres, which the economics of the time would have rendered impossible without the significant financial support which Prof. Harris brought together. At this point it was not called the ABC, but it was clear to the initial group of fellows that they were involved in something important.
When, in 1949, a group of North American surgeons made the reverse trip it was agreed by those involved that the ABC should be formed. No further exchange took place until after the 1952 Combined Meeting of the Orthopaedic Associations of the English-speaking World in London. At that meeting, members of the 1948 ABC group, led by Phillip Newman and Derrick Strange, successfully lobbied the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) to establish the ABC in its current form; on even years a group of British and Commonwealth surgeons would visit North America, and on odd years a Canadian-American group would make the reverse trip.
The exact structure of the groups has evolved over the intervening years. Their experiences and the history of the Fellowships are described eloquently in Derrick Strange’s book, available from the BOA.
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