The Sociedade Brasileira de Ortopedia e Traumatologia turns 80

A Sociedade Brasileira de Ortopedia e Traumatologia faz 80 anos Practicing medicine is an individual activity, since ethics and professional responsibility are personal. There is no way in which we can share responsibility regarding medical acts, nor can we ascribe ethical responsibility to institutions. On many occasions, situations with consequences that affect physicians but in which their participation is small, can be seen. The most frequent of these is inadequacy of health-care equipment, which goes from choosing implant materials to the state of hospitals. Our individuality is minimized through our professional associations, which in reality are of relatively recent origin. The Brazilian Medical Association (Associação Médica Brasileira, AMB) originated from the São Paulo Medical Association (Associação Paulista de Medicina, APM) in 1951, founded by Professor Jairo Ramos, and its first president was the great surgeon Professor Alipio Correa Netto. It was initially a society of scientific nature, but today its role is to defend the medical profession in political and institutional arenas. The Journal of the Brazilian Medical Association (Jornal da Associação Médica Brasileira, JAMB) was initially a scientific journal but today it is dedicated to subjects of professional and political nature. It is widely read, and is probably the medical publication that is most read in Brazil. Over these 64 years, medicine has evolved and many specialties have emerged and have become autonomous. In this manner, medicine in the fullness of its extent has become fragmented into many fields, and the AMB is left with the task of overall defense of medicine, with the various specialties as its subsidiaries. We at the Brazilian Society of Orthopedics and Traumatology (Sociedade Brasileira de Ortopedia e Trauma-tologia, SBOT) are the subsidiary of the AMB in the field of orthopedics and we have an excellent relationship with the AMB. The São Paulo regional division of the SBOT has had its main office on the premises of the APM for many years. The AMB is a body that protects and brings together the medical profession and acts in all fields of medical activity whenever requested. Recently, Brazilian specialist medical journals were having some assessment and valuation difficulties with the government funding agency CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiç oamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior ; Coordination Office for Improvement of University-level Personnel), and it was the AMB that has brought us together to seek solutions for these problems. The congresses of the AMB used to be …