On September 7, 2021, surgery, thoroughbred racing, and the world lost a tremendous surgeon, educator, mentor, and incredible human being. Dr. J. David Richardson had been chosen by then president of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma (AAST) Dr. David Spain, to deliver the 2021 Fitts Oration. Following Dr. Richardson's sudden death, there were many phone calls and text messages back and forth between the two of us (DAS and DHL) about what we were going to do and how to proceed. Upon informing another former University of Louisville faculty and partner, Dr. Mark Malangoni, about Dr. Richardson's death, Mark replied,“I bet you he has his slides done because that's the way David worked.” Dr. Malangoni was correct. The slides were sent from Dr. Richardson's office and formed the bulk of the talk, which was given by one of the authors (DHL) at the 2021 meeting of the AAST in Atlanta. The manuscript written in classic J. David Richardson's style, long hand with his fountain pen (Fig. 1), was discovered in his papers after the 2021 AAST meeting. It is unknown whether the written pages were an actual manuscript ready for submission or the outline of his address. Reading the work and looking at the slides, the authors believe that it is probably some combination of the two, although it appears more of an outline than a completed manuscript.

We then had the paper typed and have gently edited the work to put it into publishable form. One specific edit regarding the term Acute Care Surgery (ACS): Dr. Richardson used ACS, which generally encompass all three components (trauma, surgical critical care [SCC], and emergency general surgery [EGS]), somewhat interchangeably when he meant EGS alone. We have taken the liberty to edit ACS to EGS accordingly. Like the address given at the meeting, we also added some of Dr. Richardson's “own words” from the works he cites in the address. These words are identified in italics. It is our intention that, by presenting it in this way, we honor Dr. Richardson's legacy.