As incoming President of the World Gastroenterology Organization (WGO), it gives me pause to recognize that I am standing upon the shoulders of giants in the visage of all, but especially, our three most recent Past-Presidents: Eamonn Quigley, Guido Tytgat, and Meinhard Classen. If that alone is not humbling, the persistence of weakness in the global economy, the paucity of GI products coming through the developmental pipeline, the retrenchment of educational support from our industry partners, and the progressive regulation of our educational offerings all add up to potential problems in continuing current programmatic activity and precluding additional new programs in the immediate future. Despite this, I remain optimistic about the years to come...

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The joint effort between WGO, UEGF, OMED and BSG to organize a landmark meeting in London resulted in 14 600 participants from 150 countries at GASTRO 2009 UEGW/WCOG. Some of the WGO highlights of GASTRO 2009 were the Young Clinicians Program, WGO Bockus and Brohée Named Lectures, the IBS Task Force Symposium as the culmination point of WDHD 2009, WGO Global Education Symposium and the WGO General Assembly with participants from 70 member countries in attendance. The GASTRO 2009 Working Parties also presented the results of their groundbreaking scientific investigation in London and now the Working Party Report Executive Summaries are available on the WGO website. We would like to extend our warmest thank you to all participants and encourage you to share your feedback on GASTRO 2009 with us.

» More information on GASTRO 2009

» Access the Working Party Report Summaries

During 2010 WGO will raise global awareness about Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). In preparation of WDHD 2010, WGO would like to encourage all member societies to plan events for May 29, 2010 and all around the year. To support WGO member societies’ IBD awareness events, various WDHD tools will be released during 2010, one of which will be “Frequently Asked Questions about IBD”. Please send us 2-3 questions on IBD you would like to know the answer to and we will submit the most frequently asked ones to a WGO team of IBD experts.

Send your questions on IBD to info@worldgastroenterology.org.

The WGO is pleased to announce that a further Training Center was approved during the WGO General Assembly held during the World Congress in London at GASTRO 2009 UEGW/WCOG. The Gastroclinica, soon to be formally welcomed into the WGO Training Center network, is located in San Jose, Costa Rica and will be lead by Center Director Dr Herbert Burgos.

The WGO would like to give special thanks to Fujifilm Corporation for their generous support of the Center.

» More information on current WGO Training Centers

A new global guideline on “Minimizing radiation exposure for patients and staff in endoscopy” has been published by the WGO and is now available online. The guideline was produced jointly by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the WGO and is first of its kind in the GI field.

The Radiation Protection in the Endoscopy Suite already available in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

All WGO guidelines are resource-sensitive. This guideline includes a Cascade of options for colleagues in areas with high, medium and low resources. The guideline will also be available in French, Russian and Mandarin.

» Access Radiation Protection in the Endoscopy Suite Guideline

WGO is pleased to announce an agreement with the Journal of Clinical Gastroenterology (JCG) as the official publication platform for WGO’s Global Guidelines in the English language. Starting from the beginning of 2010, the WGO Global Guidelines will be made available to an even broader audience by means of publishing each new guideline first in the JCG. Quick e-access through the JCG website will ensure immediate availability after the official release date of each new WGO guideline. Any further publication requests will be reviewed carefully by WGO and all guidelines will also be freely accessible in six languages on the WGO website. The WGO-JCG cooperation has been extended to cover WGO society news in each issue and four WGO review articles per year in the JCG. Additionally, WGO will be represented in the JCG editorial board.

» See full list of WGO Global Guidelines

WGO is proud to welcome the Gastroenterology and Hepatology Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina (GEHABA), the Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy Association of Costa Rica and the Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy Association of El Salvador as its new members. WGO has now altogether 109 national member societies and 4 regional member associations.

» See WGO’s entire membership

This e-news promotes the activities of the WGO and was sent to secretariaat@nvge.nl .

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Contact: Tuija Rytkönen, WGO Executive Secretariat,
Medconnect GmbH, Bruennsteinstr. 10, 81541 Munich, Germany
Tel: +49-89-4141 92 40 Fax: +49-89-4141 92 45 Email: info@worldgastroenterology.org