The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons is primarily an educational institution. It was founded in 1927. The key aims of the organisation are to establish and maintain standards in surgery. The Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Museum was established in 2006.

Find out more about the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

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TRANSCRIPT

-The College of Surgeons was founded in 1927, and it's an educational institution. It was founded to establish and maintain a certain level of standards in surgery. When you come out of university, you've got a basic medical degree, and then you decide what sort of doctor you're going to be, whether you're going to be surgeon, or a GP, or whatever. If you decide to become a surgeon, you come to the college here, and you do surgical training. The college also does continuous assessment of surgeons in practice. They're all reaccredited every three years, just to make sure that their surgical knowledge and skills are kept up to date.

The collection divides itself quite neatly into four sections. We've got art works. There's also a rare and historic book collection. We have the surgical instruments collection, and then there's what are known as diplomatic gifts, which are objects given to presidents and on occasion of conferences or other memorable events. So I have quite a broad collection to look after. The Sidcup collection is a significant collection in itself.

It came from the University of Melbourne in 1952. It was housed in the university in the pathology department of the medical school. We don't know how it got to Melbourne University. But we do know that we've had it for a long time.