EXPRESSIONS of an Academic Surgeon is a collection of speeches, lectures, and commentaries delivered over nearly 4 decades by a leading clinician and scientist whose entire career has been at one of the country's leading University Hospitals. The book's twenty addresses encompass all three of the pillars of being a professor and teacher in the medical arena: education and mentorship, research and discovery, and care of the sick. The topics include emotional pleas to improve the performance of surgical procedures by properly trained specialists rather than so called jack of all trade generalists. The role of research is addressed in minichapters, ranging from being sure a given treatment is valid to understanding the molecular and genetic basis of disease. Lastly, the singular importance of improving the future of medicine by an understanding of what mentorship truly is, represents the core of the author's existence. Those reading this book will depart with a sense of what contemporary life of a busy academic surgeon is all about.