British Society of Gastroenterology 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting Report - Jayne Eaden, MBChB, MD, FRCP

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33 WORLD GASTROENTEROLOGY NEWS NOVEMBER 2016 Editorial | Expert Point of View | Gastro 2016: EGHS-WGO | WDHD News | WGO & WGOF News | WGO Global Guidelines | Calendar of Events British Society of Gastroenterology 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting Report The annual meeting was held in Liv-erpool at the Echo Arena from 20-23 June 2016. The conference attracted a record number of delegates with 2,199 attendees. 97% of delegates rated the meeting and program content as being very good / good and many stated it was the best BSG they had attended! Although there is a drive to make all meetings paperless, the majority of delegates appreciated having the confer-ence newspaper, the “Delegates Digest”, which included all the program sessions along with special features on prize win-ners and section highlights. There were other firsts at the conference includ-ing hot food, new prizes for the best abstracts, Twitter for novices sessions, screens displaying live Twitter feeds, a free power-pack for every delegate, and interactive mapping, messaging and delegate finder on the conference app. The meeting commenced with a very well-attended post-graduate education day with a state-of-the-art lecture on the microbiome, cutting-edge updates in many areas of gastroenterology and interactive sessions on managing endo-scopic complications throughout the day. This was followed by the trainee sections’ novel symposium on “Gastro-enterology in War Zones”. Tuesday began with free paper ses-sions followed by the BSG Plenary. This saw Prof. Michael Camilleri deliver the Sir Arthur Hurst lecture on ‘advances in the management of chronic constipation and diarrhea’, the Sir Francis Avery-Jones research medal lecture from Dr. Ye Oo and the New Perspectives lecture from Prof. Jane Dacre, President of the Royal College of Physicians, on ‘interesting times’. The highest ranking confer-ence abstract was also showcased and the inaugural BSG Lifetime Achieve-ment Award was presented to a very popular and well deserved recipient: Prof. Chandu Bardhan. That evening also saw the popular conference party organized by our trainee section in the Albert Dock featuring ‘The Cheatles’. The conference held several parallel symposia on all aspects of gastrointesti-nal and liver disease. There was a good balance of basic and clinical science symposia, state-of-the-art lectures and clinical updates throughout the week.  Many sections of the BSG had collaborated to provide twelve joint symposia enhancing shared learning with many sessions being interactive. Live endoscopy was reintroduced at the conference with Wednesday seeing a full day of live links from Aintree. The sessions focused on “getting the basics right” and were particularly popular with delegates. The Thursday Scien-tific Translational Master Class looked at the gut neuroendocrine system in detail and Core also featured strongly having two sessions in the main program in addition to their patient symposium. Live Twitter feeds were displayed on screens around the venue and thanks go to the ‘BSG Twitterati’ for keeping those screens fun, dynamic and insightful! Almost 800 abstracts were submitted with an acceptance rate of 71%. From Tuesday through Thursday there were lunchtime poster judging rounds con-ducted by BSG committee members. Each and every poster was judged so authors got the chance to showcase their research and obtain feedback from experts in their field. There were also abstracts of distinction, exhibition posters and video presenters had tablets to show their videos to interested delegates. Some sessions at the conference were extremely popular and delegates were turned away. Room sizes will be scru-tinized for the next conference but if BSG members missed any presentations at the conference they are now available on BSGtv which can be accessed on the BSG website (www.bsg.org.uk). Planning is already in progress for our next conference which will be held in Manchester from 19-22 June 2017. Put the date in your calendar now! I enjoyed the process of chairing the scientific program committee enor-mously and thank all those involved in contributing to BSG 2016. Jayne Eaden, MBChB, MD, FRCP British Society of Gastroenterology Senior Secretary and Pro-gram Committee Chair United Kingdom Professor Subrata Ghosh presenting the high-est ranking abstract during the BSG plenary session.


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