Welcome Prof. R. Giuli |
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Anacrusis
• With never having taken what already existed as its own, but uniquely by the originality of its innovative methods regularly updated and its collective work,
OESO progressively established its own reputation in the international scientific community. OESO is proud to present today the program of its 11th World Conference.
This Conference offers an exceptional, unique three and half days focus on a disease that interests us all, experts or not, whatever our main area of specialization or our professional center of interest: this time, GERD, physio-pathology, and benign or malignant related diseases.
And all efforts have been made to discern and accurately define what, in 2012, determines the still unmet clinical needs in reflux disease. The idea of a multi-disciplinary Program Committee, comprising 35 Committees specialized in all disciplines involving the upper digestive tract was launched at the end of the Boston Conference in 2010. I shared the enthusiasm shown at the prospect of using this new method to draw up the scientific program of the OESO Conferences.
The content of the program is designed to offer to the international community, again this time, what it has come to expect from OESO:
• The outstanding gift of the effort furnished by great specialists, contacted wherever they are in the world, to provide, each in his/her discipline, a concise and illuminating synthesis of a particular aspect of a difficult problem in gastroenterology.
This 11th Conference will respect the same, original, exclusive format which has established the reputation of each of the preceding OESO international gatherings since the very first:
• One single subject
Reflux disease, From LES to UES, and beyond...
– 574 Questions
– World experts to answer them
A multi-disciplinary dissection of one subject over 3 and a half days by a series of several hundred questions, each answer, given in no more than 300 seconds, casting light on a highly focused aspect of the subject.
Each communication is offered to the attendees by a leading specialist in one of the 19 disciplines represented in OESO: 40 sessions (1hr 45mn each, with a 30 mn time slot for discussion).
Thus, the topic of the Conference will be dissected, fragmented into tiny bits by these answers, one following each other in Plenary Sessions and Special Sessions at a 5 minute pace, completed in the program by presentations (5 or 10 mn), in Symposia and Topic Fora which will shed additional light on the theme of the Conference.
In addition, three “Grand Forum” sessions will be dedicated to broad subjects, at which time certain topics will be put forward and introduced for thought following a brief “key note”, so as to stir broad and controversial discussions.
The last Grand Forum of the Conference will be a vast, multi-disciplinary Forum symbolizing the essence of OESO, the inter-disciplinary approach to esophageal disease.
In this way, by the end of the Conference, the single theme, will be entirely metabolized and absorbed by the participants who may even, occasionally, feel that they have become something of a specialist in a discipline that was not their own.
• This 11th World Congress will go yet further with those, now becoming more and more numerous, who bring their enthusiasm to the debates.
• The CME multi-disciplinary course, made up of ten-minute “How I…” presentations given by recognized specialists followed by a 5 minute discussion,
• The discussion of a chosen clinical case, organized in the framework of the Chair for distance learning granted by UNESCO.
Particular importance has been also given to Posters, welcome on any subject dealing with the upper digestive tract, ranging from fundamental research and physiology to thorough investigations and treatments applied to diseases of the esophagus and stomach. The authors have been requested to provide OESO with several power point slides which will be part of an original “Streaming presentation” displayed throughout the Conference. A special session will be made up of the oral presentation of 12 selected posters.
Those of the young generation will be at the forefront throughout the Conference:
• Ten young investigators have been asked to serve as Session Secretary, vested with the responsibility to contribute to the running of the sessions conducted by the 2 Chairs and one Discussant. In addition, they will note the outstanding points of the presentations and discussions to provide a summary to be posted in the main Hall and made available to the attendees as the day goes on.
• The OESO Fellow & Young Investigators Award: the OESO protocol research competition organized in 2010 at the time of the Boston Conference was highly successful and welcomed entries of high scientific level. The first 2 winners will be OESO’s special guests in Como and will present their progress reports of the studies they have led. Five protocols were selected this year, and will be presented by their authors.
One last point: the OESO Conferences are, of course,
• 10 hours of intense daily work during three and a half days,
• But, also, the result of intensive, imaginative planning of “cultural and social events” that we wish each time to be original and memorable.
See page 89, and be prepared to waltz through a splendid Gala evening!
The exceptional cooperation initiated in 2010 at the Boston Confrence between OESO and the New york Academy of Sciences continues to strengthen.
The publication of the texts provided by the speakers in a special issue of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences allows for a lasting follow-up to the content of the Conference. In addition, the simultaneous access to PubMed and other IT medias offered by this cooperation presents a further asset for the authors.
Keeping with the impetus which is OESO’s, and the unique format that has always signed its congresses, this 11th Conference is the result of a very special synergy: again this time, it allowed us to win the improbable wager OESO casts in the program.
My thanks go to Carlos Pellegrini, President of OESO, and Reza Shaker, Executive Director, for their complicity, complete trust in this endeavor, and wise advice which allowed us, so many times, to share some of the problematic challenges of this conference...
I thank Guido Costamagna, who lent his vast experience and reputation to the enterprise, plus, as he says, his genotype, he, a native of Como...
I thank Carmelo Scarpignato, a friend from long, long way back, who again this time answered “Present!”, and who sustained us with his never exhausting help and sound advice. This time, as President of the Organizing Committee, he brought, not only his total commitment to this 11th event, but his Sicilian determination, his personal energy, his humour, and his rare encyclopedic knowledge of multi-disciplinary gastroenterology.
My thanks go to all the members of the “OESO troop” – that is, all those who worked in the 35 Committees or “Interest Sections” that will, from now on, structure the future congresses. I thank each contributor for having transformed a concept into a pithy question, the 570 of them making up a coherent, exceptional scientific program.
And what to say of the one who has always been there, with absolute loyalty and steadfast trust in the future of OESO, the one who is called affectionately by hundreds across the globe “Michele”, the one Carmelo Scarpignato has named “The beacon of Esophagology”... Michele Liegeon! I express my thanks to her, whose keen intelligence and dedication are matched only by her never relenting enthusiasm. And it is an uncommon pleasure for me to address these thoughts publicly to her today.
Together wih Reza Shaker, Executive Director, Ravi Mittal, the new President of OESO, George Triadafilopoulos, President Elect, Roger Tatum, Vice President, With the close collaboration of OESO’s new Partner Planning Congressi, and, for the first time with the official collaboration of the UNESCO, the WHO, and several major Cancer Centers in the world, adhering to the Question & Answer format, the stamp of OESO, bearing in mind the lessons learned from this 11th Conference,
The 12th OESO Conference on Cancers of the Esophagus, August 27-30, at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, will be a milestone making event!
Robert Giuli, MD, FACS
