Greetings!
As we close 2019, please allow me to take this opportunity to wish you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous New Year, to update you on many of the recent activities of ESGE, and to look ahead to what awaits us in 2020.
In 2019, ESGE launched a strategic planning initiative, including an anonymous online comprehensive member survey. We had an outstanding response to our survey and gathered important input from our membership. This information will allow ESGE to better serve our member societies and our individual members in the coming years. Thank you again to all who responded!
ESGE remains fully committed to promoting and improving quality in endoscopy and providing educational opportunities for our membership. This is achieved through face-to-face congresses such as ESGE Days, through our newly expanded online e-learning platform, both of which are driving innovation and research in gastrointestinal endoscopy. These activities are only possible due to our very active Governing Board, committees and working groups. I am proud to report that ESGE now has more than 200 such members involved in delivering to you ESGE’s educational output and products.
I am very happy to report that our membership continues to steadily grow. ESGE now has almost 3,000 individual members, with many of you joining by way of our highly successful “dual membership” programme. To date, 25 member societies have entered into a “dual membership” agreement with ESGE. If your home member society has yet to take advantage of establishing a “dual membership” agreement with ESGE, please contact ESGE and we will be happy
to provide you with information about this programme!
ESGE’s flagship international congress, “ESGE Days 2019”, was a huge success. Taking place in April in Prague, Czech Republic, more than 2,700 attendees from 100 countries joined us to make this an outstanding event. The ESGE Days 2020 scientific committee has been very hard at work and we are excited to bring you the 3rd annual “ESGE Days 2020” from April 23-25, 2020, in beautiful Dublin, Ireland (www.esgedays.org). ESGE Days is a 3-day congress for “everything endoscopy”, providing something for everyone on the endoscopy team…from basic to “extreme” endoscopy. In addition to our core scientific programme, there will once again be our postgraduate course, hands on endoscopy training, academic skills course, and six hours of LIVE endoscopy from London, UK. The “EYE Zone” will once again be awaiting our young colleagues who will additionally benefit from a brand-new feature – a dedicated track for young endoscopists. I am also happy to announce that this year at ESGE Days 2020, ESGE will join forces with the Irish Society of Gastroenterology and British Society of Gastroenterology for a combined full day clinical symposium on the first day of the congress (April 23, 2020). ESGE will also be partnering with our national member societies and worldwide partners including WEO, ASGE, A-PSDE, JGES, KSGE, EGEUS and of course ESGENA. Due to the success of the ESGENA “Spring School” at ESGE Days 2019, this endoscopy nurse training program will be offered again as well as nurse-dedicated didactic sessions.
Through our highly cited guidelines and quality parameters publications, ESGE continues to provide endoscopists from around the world with current, evidence-based, state of the art guidance for diagnosing and treating gastroenteric diseases. In addition, ESGE has initiated a series of training curricula for advanced endoscopic procedures and has adapted several ESGE guidelines in cascade documents to offer guidance to more underserved areas of the world.
In this past year, ESGE has updated our website (www.esge.com) while at the same time expanding our online e-learning presence. ESGE is now providing online e-learning opportunities to our members through programmes such as the ESGE website’s eLearning area, ESGE Webinars (free to all), ESGE Days Webcasts, and by myESGEtutor. The myESGEtutor platform is an interactive
online eLearning tool with e-learning modules containing an initial self-assessment, clinical case studies, video training materials and a final assessment to help you achieve your personalised certificate of completion provided by ESGE. I highly recommend you check it out!
Furthermore in 2020, the way ESGE will disseminate face-to-face education and research knowledge in the field of gastrointestinal endoscopy will have two new initiatives. The ESGE Travelling Endoscopy Programme (ESGE TEP) will be launched. The ESGE TEP…“bringing ESGE to you” …aims to strengthen ESGE’s relationship with its member societies and other partnering endoscopy societies around the world. This new educational programme will deliver and disseminate ESGE’s guidelines and quality improvement measures, promote quality and education in endoscopy, and deliver high level, evidence-based didactic lectures from internationally recognized experts. The ESGE TEPs are not stand-alone events. They are adjoined to existing congresses / national meetings. So please be on the lookout for the upcoming launch of the ESGE Travelling Endoscopy Programme with additional detailed information! In addition, the ESGE “Research Champions Den” will be launched in Dublin at ESGE Days 2020 and we do hope that this programme will facilitate and strengthen many research ideas and innovations in the field of endoscopy.
Finally, our Public Affairs and Patient Advocacy Working groups provided a position statement on the role of endoscopy in Screening for GI cancer and a video for patients having colonoscopy. These working groups are important for our society and crucial for the patients we serve.
Looking ahead to 2020 and beyond, we still have work to do. We will continue our quest to improve quality in endoscopy with the support of our members and your involvement. We anticipate an exciting year ahead and very much hope to greet you in Dublin at ESGE Days 2020!
I am honoured and humbled to be the President of ESGE and once again, on behalf of ESGE, I wish you and your families a happy New Year!
Mário Dinis-Ribeiro
ESGE President