Never Say Never Again! The Thirty-Third Presidential Address To The Surgical Infection Society

Thank you President Sawyer for your kind introduction, as it is truly an honor to become the thirty-third President of the Surgical Infection Society (SIS). I want to first congratulate Dr. Sawyer on a wonderful academic surgical career, and one who has contributed to the SIS enormously in a multitude of ways. He has mentored countless students and residents, and it was a fitting tribute to Dr. Sawyer that his former mentees collectively contributed some $15,000 this year to establish a special account within the SIS Foundation for future use. This is a wonderful, vibrant organization that is fed by new data at each of its annual meetings. About two-thirds of the papers presented at the meetings are clinical and the remainder address issues of basic science, which leads to wonderful intellectual interactions and discussions among members with differing scientific and clinical backgrounds. These are often led by thought leaders in the study, prevention, and treatment of surgical infection, a problem that has plagued mankind throughout history. My particular area of interest within this field has been the early innate immune response to peritonitis from gut-derived bacteria and how this response may have unintended consequences to remote organs [1–5]. Indeed, mortality from secondary bacterial peritonitis has been directly related to the development of multiple organ failure [6].