You have done me the honor of allowing me to serve as your President. The esteem of one’s peers is truly a blessing in life.

I should like to share with you some of my most sincere reflections on the future status of the profession of medicine and of our specialty within the profession. One cannot have lived a full life and carried the responsibilities of leadership without some soul-searching contemplation. Let us consider and explore the following topics:

1) The training of younger physicians in our specialty of proctology;
2) the role of our Society in advancing knowledge in our specialty;
3) the relationship of our Society to the profession of medicine as a whole;
4) the responsibility of each of us as physicians to our profession of medicine and to the public which it serves.