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The Ogden Bruton Lectureship

• Past Recipients of the Ogden Bruton Lectureship

Ogden Bruton Endowment – Established 1969
Section on Uniformed Services
Established to honor Odgen C. Bruton, MD, FAAP, who discovered the immunodeficiency disease bearing his name and organizer of the first pediatric residency program at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. For all those who knew him, “The patient is first, and last, always.” This endowment provides an honorarium of $500.00 and a plaque to a prominent speaker for the AAP National Conference and Exhibition to be selected by the Section’s program committee.

History of the Ogden Bruton Lecturship
In 1980 Colonel Ogden C. Bruton, MC, Ret, USA, contacted Gerald Hughes, MD, Secretary, and Director of Division of Continuing Education of the American Academy of Pediatrics, to offer his support of a speaker for the annual program of the Academy’s Section on Military Pediatrics. 

Dr. Bruton wanted to establish a fund to provide an honorarium of $500.00 and a certificate to a speaker for the annual meeting to be selected by the Section’s program committee.  He suggested that a prominent pediatrician local to the meeting site or someone who already would be attending the meeting be chosen as he did not wish to have travel or other expenses paid for out of the lectureship fund.

Dr. Bruton intended the fund to become self-perpetuating.  The academy
advised him that it would take several years until the fund could reach the point where it would provide enough interest to take care of the honorarium and certificate.  Dr. Bruton contributed to the fund during those first years in increments of about $2,000 a year.

A search of the minutes of meetings of the AAP Board of Directors and the Section on Uniformed Services did not uncover any reference to an official approval of the “Ogden Bruton Lectureship.”  However, the AAP archivist speculated that at the time the fund was established such approval may not have been required and that it may have been brought before the Council on Sections.  COS historical documents are not available.

The first Bruton Lecture, then referred to as “Keynote Speaker - Supported by the Ogden C. Bruton Fund”, was delivered at the Section’s program at the 1980 AAP Annual Meeting in Detroit, MI.

In 1986 the section’s keynote address was referred to as the “Ogden Bruton Lectureship” for the first time.  Also in 1986 the Chair of the Uniformed Services Section indicated he would like to initiate a section policy that will reimburse the lecturer for travel, food, and lodging for up to the nights before and after the Bruton Lectureship if these expenses were not already met by another source.  The thinking was that such a policy would maintain the Bruton Lectureship as a true honorarium.

By 1996 the lectureship recipient received a no-cost registration for the AAP Annual Meeting, reimbursement for airfare, 2 nights hotel, meals, and incidental expenses, and a $300 honorarium. The 1996 “Awards and Lectureships” page of the annual meeting program indicates that the lectureship is “supported by an educational grant from Ross Products Division, Abbott Laboratories.”  Memos from 1998 indicated the Section’s interest in looking for outside sponsorship.

Finally, in his initial conversations with Academy Dr. Bruton suggested that if the Section is disbanded the fund should be transferred to the AAP for the same use