Defining ‘Cutting-edge’ Excellence: Awarding Nobel Prizes (or not) to Surgeons

Abstract

[T]he Nobel award casts a glow of pride over all those associated with the recipient, through their field of science, their professions, or their institutions.1 As I walked across the stage to meet King Gustav iv as he approached me from the opposite side, the whole experience seemed like a fairy tale. Here I was – a clinical doctor, a surgeon whose professional life was devoted primarily to taking care of patients – receiving the world’s most prestigious scientific prize.2