The Mayo Clinic World War II short course and its effect on anesthesiology.

WORLD War II changed American medicine. Physicians were recruited in unprecedented numbers because the armed services needed specialists to care for the troops both in and out of combat. The need for physicians who were able to administer anesthetics to injured soldiers was of paramount concern. To accelerate training, the armed services created postgraduate courses to teach the fundamentals of the specialty. These courses were set up across the United States in places like the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin; Bellevue Hospital in New York City, New York; Harvard University in Boston, Massachusetts; and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. These trainees returned to civilian medicine after the hostilities ceased. How were these courses set up? Did the graduates continue to practice anesthesia after the war? Were these physicians responsible for the tremendous postwar growth of anesthesiology, as has often been theorized?