The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma was conceived during the meetings of the Western Surgical Association and Southern Surgical Association in December 1937. The 14 founders who were present at one or both of these meetings invited another 68 surgeons to a Founding Members meeting in San Francisco on June 14, 1938 and the first official meeting of the AAST was held in May 1939 in Hot Springs, Virginia.

Since its inception the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma was established to further the study and practice of traumatic surgery in its various departments, in the United States and Canada.

Those initial ideals have since expanded to include: furnish leadership and to foster advances in the surgery of trauma; to enhance the study and practice of the surgery of trauma by establishing lectureships, scholarships, foundations, and appropriate evaluation procedures in the surgery of trauma where appropriate; to afford recognition to those who have contributed to the surgery of trauma by extending to them membership in the Association.

Today, the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, is the premier academic trauma surgery organization in the United States and has approximately 1,000 members from 30 countries.

The Association publishes the Journal of Trauma and holds annual scientific meetings designed to exchange knowledge pertaining to current research practice and training in the surgery of trauma and design research studies to investigate new methods of preventing, correcting and treating traumatic injuries.

AAST invites you to look through our site. If you are looking for something which you cannot find, please send us an email at tjenkins@aast.org. The AAST website, Trauma Source, is adding information daily. Thank you for visiting our website.