had a dream. My dream was to assemble the current and future leaders in surgery and ask them to develop an evidence-based surgical textbook that would provide the reader with the most up-to-date and relevant information on which to base decisions in modern surgical practice. In other words, the dream was to create the best, most comprehensive textbook of surgery. Fortunately, I met Laura Gillan of Springer-Verlag New York, who had a similar dream. As our editor, she has provided the foundation and structure for this dream. She has made this dream a reality. Because surgery is a highly specialized and diverse discipline with significant complexity, I also needed a commitment from outstanding sur­ geons to serve as coeditors. I was fortunate to have a diverse group of exceptional, young-in-spirit, en­ ergetic, cutting-edge, surgical investigators share in this project, and I wish to thank them for their in­ valuable contribution to this undertaking. The Editorial Board, including Randy Bollinger, Fred Chang, Steve Lowry, Sean Mulvihill, Harvey Pass, and Robert Thompson, met for the first time at the Ameri­ can College of Surgeons meeting in Chicago in October 1997 (Fig. 1). There, this book was conceived. Each of us developed the plan and content for his specific surgical discipline. The common thread is that all decisions and recommendations are based on the best available evidence and that the reader can clearly see the evidence in our "E-tables" (evidence-based tables) specifically marked for the reader's reference.