Surgical research is in serious trouble. Economic reasoning favors clinical and quick-fix solutions over basic surgical investigation. Political ambitions, using animal welfare as a tool, turn the public opinion against experimental surgery.As a direct result, physicians receive their surgical training in the clinical operating theater; the surgical innovator is discouraged by the increasing barriers to investigative surgery, which include legal obstacles. This is the time to pause in the daily fight with the "wings of windmills," and to reflect on where we have come from and where we are going. The past 100 years of medicine have shown the greatest advances ever in medical care at an ever increasing rate of progress and success. Current hurdles in the pursuit of surgical research make us wonder whether we have sufficiently prepared the way for the scientists in our field of tomorrow. Are we stimulating the best of our graduates to enter medical research? Are we generating excitement for the career of scientist and teacher in medicine and surgery? Are we giving high enough priorities to a research-conducive, problem-solving environment in academia? Are we educating the public on our needs and motives? Are we supporting each other in our struggles to maintain honesty and high professional ethics in the development and dissemination of our research results?These reflections led a few concerned scientists to develop means to foster the art, science, and technology of surgical research through critical publication and decoration. The Academy of Surgical Research hosts annual scientific meetings for progress reports and publishes the Journal of Investigative Surgery for scholarly writing.An award was instituted to publically decorate and celebrate the great teachers and innovators in our field.The late Jacob Markowitz was selected as a symbol for the new scientific approach to surgery that marks this century. The award was named for him because he had great compassion for surgical science, his fellow man, and animals.