First surgical lecture in North America

Background. King's College, established in 1754 by royal charter under George II on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhattan, was the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York. In 1767 Samuel Bard, an alumnus of then-King's College and the University of Edinburgh Medical School, opened a medical school there, the first medical program in the Province of New York and only the second in the American Colonies.

The Medical School of 1767. The new medical department, modelled on the University of Edinburgh Medical School, then the world leader, was founded by Bard as the medical department of King's College and is now known as the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. It was the first medical school in the Thirteen Colonies to award the Doctor of Medicine degree; earlier American and Canadian schools had offered only the Bachelor of Medicine.

The Attributed Surgical Lecture. A legacy record states that at this new King's College medical school, Dr. John Jones gave the first lecture by a surgical professor in North America. The supplied passages do not mention Jones, a surgical professorship, or any lecture, so this claim rests on the legacy record alone and cannot be independently verified from the retrieved sources.