First WGO Latin American Training Center Directors Meeting
In March 2009, the La Paz WGO/JICA Training Center held its annual three day International Course on Advances in Gastroenterology and Digestive Endoscopy. La Paz Center Director, Dr Guido Villa-Gomez, generously used the occasion to host the first of what is hoped to be an annual meeting of the WGO Latin American Training Center Directors. Both the three day course and the Directors meeting were great successes.
The WGO currently has six Training Centers located throughout Latin America. WGO Training Centers can be found in Bogota, Colombia (Director Carlos Luis Sabbagh); La Paz, Bolivia (Director Guido Villa-Gomez); La Plata, Argentina (Co-Directors Nestor Landoni and Nestor Chopita); Mexico City, Mexico (Director Miguel Valdovinos); Ribeirão Preto, Brazil (Director Roberto Dantas) and Santiago, Chile (Director Claudio Navarrete). The Directors and WGO Secretary General, Henry Cohen, who also served as invited faculty members on the International Course, met March 11th – March 12th with the aim to lay the groundwork for a network in Latin America. The meeting allowed for open discussion among colleagues and gave each Director detailed insight into how the other Centers are structured as well as what they offer in terms of training. This meeting was the first step towards the creation of a WGO Gastroenterological Training Network in Latin America.
Together with the course participants, the Training Center Directors also had the opportunity to participate in the La Paz Center’s annual outreach program in Copacabana. Copacabana is a small and picturesque town on the shores of Lake Titicaca, 3 hours from La Paz, with a predominant Indian Aymara population and descendants of Inca Culture. In Copacabana hospital, medical activities were offered free of charge to local residents, including outpatient consultation, ultrasonography and endoscopy, and laproscopic surgery. Over 300 patients are treated during the two day time period each year.
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