AARC Named Lectures and the Backstory

Abstract

Named or honor lectures are common in many medical societies and typically are presented at annual meetings. To be invited to present a named lecture is an honor because it represents recognition of academic accomplishments and service to the profession. At present, the AARC Congress includes 3 named lectures, each focused on an aspect of the profession. This issue of the Journal includes manuscripts generated from named lectures presented at AARC Congress 2020 LIVE! event that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a brief description of the people for whom the lectures are named.The first and most prestigious named lecture is the Donald F Egan Scientific Memorial Lecture, first presented in 1974. The speaker for the Egan Lecture is generally considered an authority on the topic and has demonstrated a long and productive academic career. The speaker for the Egan Lecture is expected to provide a state-of-the-art review of a given topic and to provide a modicum of wisdom regarding the issues. The Egan Lecture is named for Donald Egan MD. Egan is best remembered for writing one of the early respiratory care textbooks, "Fundamentals of Inhalation Therapy," in 1969. 1 At the time, he was Director of Chest Diseases at New Britain General Hospital in Connecticut, Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University, and former director of the School of Inhalation Therapy at New Haven Hospital (Fig. 1).Egan was an early supporter of the respiratory care profession and wrote a number of papers describing the importance of what would become the modern practice of respiratory therapy. [2][3][4][5] Of note, in his 1975 paper in Chest, Egan wrote 2 :Respiratory therapy has been something of a phenomenon in modern medicine. Its use in the care of both acutely and chronically ill patients by technical personnel with less than standard medical or nursing training represents a significant and innovative modification of traditional medicine, as an effort to meet contemporary health care needs. The technology was fostered by a relatively small number of physicians interested in new approaches to diagnosis and treatment of pulmonary disorders, but the speed with which demands for its services grew, especially over the past dozen years or so, is testimony enough that it satisfied a strong and widespread need.