WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS
Official e-newsletter of the World Gastroenterology Organisation
VOL. 23, ISSUE 1 APRIL 2018
In this issue
www.worldgastroenterology.org
We Are World GI: A Celebration
of the World Congress of
Gastroenterology at ACG 2017
David J. Bjorkman, MD, MSPH
Carol A. Burke, MD, FACG
Geoffrey Metz, AM MBBS, FRACP, MD, FRCP
(UK), FACP
Jonathan A. Leighton, MD, FACG
Appropriate use of Fecal Calprotectin
VG Naidoo, MD
Cihan Yurdaydin, MD
President of WGO 2017-2019
Hepatology Institute, Chief, University of Ankara
Professor of Gastroenterology, Department of Gastroenterology,
University of Ankara Medical School • Ankara, Turkey
Continued on page 4
President’s Message:
Why Is WGO Still Important?
As the new president of the WGO, I want to express my sincere feelings about WGO
and want to thank the editors of e-WGN, Drs. Surawicz and Reis, for giving me the
opportunity to use the e-WGN platform for this purpose.
Is WGO required?
Yes, it is, is the short answer.
But don’t be shy and ask more direct questions.
You can say: “There is the AGA (American Gastroenterological Association), the
ACG (American College of Gastroenterology), the UEG (United European Gastroenterology),
the APAGE (Asian Pacific Association of Gastroenterology), the OPGE
(Organisación Panamericana de Gastroenterologia), the AMAGE (African Middle East
Association of Gastroenterology), and on top of these regional associations, the many
national gastroenterology societies. Why do we need yet another organization called
WGO, the World Gastroenterology Organisation?”
The latter part of the question needs basically no answer since it is always important
to have a national forum of professionals for many good reasons. The listed regional
associations need attention. The two American gastroenterology associations, although
formally national organizations, should be also considered within the regional societies,
as the meetings they organize have always been international meetings, more so within
the last 3 decades at least.
It may be tempting to compare the American organizations and the other regional
organizations with WGO. However, this comparison is futile for one important reason.
All of the former organizations’ most important or main objective is to organize a very
good annual meeting where the latest of basic and/or clinical research is presented and
discussed. This is true especially for the annual meetings of the AGA, ACG, UEG and
APAGE since the bulk of new scientific input come from these areas. WGO has also
its meetings, the world congresses and regional meetings, but in contrast to the other
organizations mentioned above, these meetings are not the most important or main ob-