NYSGE 43rd Annual Course: Scintillating Success for 2019

Firstly, there was outstanding registration, totaling close to 700 for the main sessions!!

There were also over 150 Optional Advanced Course registrants, at last count. The NYSGE annual course remains the largest regional GI meeting in the USA each year, and trails behind only DDW and the ACG meeting in terms of attendance.

The course was comprised of 89 faculty, 41 presentations in the main session, 24 presentations in the Nurses and Associates program, and countless others in the optional advanced courses.

In fact, there were 4 separate optional and hands-on sessions during the Course, and several other special Programs. These sessions are each unique, innovative and in a word, outstanding.

Attendees came from all over the US and around the world, a testimony to the far reaching word of mouth “buzz” there is about this Course each year.

On top of all that, there were four innovative lunchtime symposia, and 9 special lectures, including the Florence Lefcourt Lecture, given by Uzma Siddiqui, the David Falkenstein Lecture, by Naohisa Yahagi, the NYSGE President’s Address by Sammy Ho, the ASGE President’s Lecture by John Vargo, the ACG President’s lecture by Mark Pochapin, the Richard McCray Lecture, by Jerry Waye, the Ed Bini Lecture, by Peter Draganov, and the Peter Steven’s lecture, by Nick Shaheen. The first ever Sid Winawer Lecture was given by Robin Mendelsohn.

This year’s Course also featured two special tributes to two very special past Presidents, Jerry Waye and Sid Winawer.  The Society salutes both of them for their achievements throughout their careers.

The incredible scientific poster session were led by Susana Gonzalez and Demetrios Tzimas. This year we had over 50 different authors who submitted 38 posters, with several entries from outside the NYC area!!  The poster session review included a cocktail reception on Thursday evening. The room was packed; this is indeed a popular event!  The always popular Peter Steven’s Video Forum, led by Anthony Starpoli and Daniela Jodorkovsky, again was a huge success, with 6 outstanding videos.  The Fellow’s Forum on Thursday evening was superb, coordinated by Michelle Kim and Brian Bosworth; the feedback was excellent.

The Doris C. Barnie Nurses and Associates Program, skillfully arranged as always by Barbara Zuccala and Nancy Schlossberg, again was a huge success, with outstanding lectures and interactive sessions. The Nurses and Associates program this year attracted well over 200 participants, all of whom were raving about the quality of the program. A huge thank you to Barbara and Nancy; we appreciate their efforts immensely.

The Live from New York Course was packed with a range of incredible cases again this year…our most sincere gratitude to Greg Haber for the unbelievable amount of energy and effort he puts into directing this truly outstanding piece of the Course each and every year.  Big time thanks to Sammy Ho as well for his co-leadership this year.   The NYU-Langone location continues to be excellent.  Many thanks to the team there who worked hard to coordinate everything. The quality of the HD transmission is truly spectacular; even more impressive is the quality of the material being presented and the quality of the Faculty doing the procedures and commenting on the care…fascinating procedures at the cutting edge of gastroenterology explained by masters in their field!!

The Society thanks our out-of-town guests at NYU, Peter Draganov, Simon Lo, Uzma Siddiqui and Naohisa Yahagi, who were simply amazing, as well as to our NYC Faculty, who were equally awesome!

2018 42nd New York Annual Course Success!

 

First, and this is a big one, we had outstanding registration, totaling close to 700 for the main sessions!!  We had a delegation of 15 physicians attend from China.

 We also had over 200 Workshop and Symposia registrants, at last count. This remains the largest regional GI meeting in the USA each year, and trails behind only DDW and the ACG meeting in terms of attendance.

We had 89 faculty, 41 presentations in the main session, 24 presentations in the Nurses and Associates program, and countless others in the satellite seminars.

In fact, there were 5 separate satellite and hands-on sessions during the Course, and several other special Programs. These sessions are each unique, innovative and in a word, outstanding.

We had attendees from all over the US and around the world, a testimony to the far reaching word of mouth “buzz” there is about this Course each year.

On top of all that, we had seven innovative lunchtime symposia, and 11 special lectures, including the Florence Lefcourt Lecture, given by Tonya Kaltenbach, the David Falkenstein Lecture, given by Todd Baron, the Ed Bini Lecture, given by Larry Brandt, the ASGE President’s Lecture by Steve Edmundowicz, the NYSGE President’s Address by Seth Gross, the Richard McCray Lecture, given by Sid Winawer, and the Peter Steven’s lecture, given by Stavros Stavropoulos.

We had an incredible scientific poster session, led by Susana Gonzalez and Lauren Khanna. This year we had over 50 different authors who submitted 38 posters, with several entries from outside the NYC area!!  The poster session review included a cocktail reception on Thursday evening. The room was packed; this is indeed a popular event!  The always popular Peter Steven’s Video Forum, led by Anthony Starpoli and Juan Carlos Bucobo, again was a huge success, with 6 outstanding videos, including one submitted from Canada.  The Fellow’s Forum on Thursday evening was superb, coordinated by Michelle Kim and Brian Bosworth; the feedback was excellent.

 The Doris C. Barnie Nurses and Associates Program, skillfully arranged as always by Barbara Zuccala and Nancy Schlossberg, again was a huge success, with outstanding lectures and interactive sessions. The Nurses and Associates program this year attracted well over 200 participants, all of whom were raving about the quality of the program. A huge thank you to Barbara and Nancy; we appreciate their efforts immensely.

The Live from New York Course was packed with a range of incredible cases again this year…our most sincere gratitude to Greg Haber for the unbelievable amount of energy and effort he puts into directing this truly outstanding piece of the Course each and every year.  Big time thanks to Sammy Ho as well for his co-leadership this year.   The NYU-Langone location continues to be excellent.  Many thanks to the team there who worked hard to coordinate everything. The quality of the HD transmission is truly spectacular; even more impressive is the quality of the material being presented and the quality of the Faculty doing the procedures and commenting on the care…fascinating procedures at the cutting edge of gastroenterology explained by masters in their field!!  

Gratitude is well-deserved to the many persons who give their time to the New York Course.

Thanks to our out of town guests at NYU, Todd Baron, Guido Costamagna, Jacques Deviere and Vanessa Shami, who were simply amazing, as well as to our NYC Faculty, who were equally awesome!

Thanks as well to all the panelists at the Marriott, who really were very lively and provocative this year, many of whom spent parts of both days with us…the panel discussions really brought out critical decision making points in each case…many thanks!!

 Also, we can’t thank David Robbins enough.  David is now the master of the hugely important role of being behind the scenes at the live course…really making it all happen, but rarely seen!!  We couldn’t have done it without him!!

Phil Joseph and his team at Advance Concepts get big time kudos as well.  Their audiovisual and technical expertise is beyond amazing and we appreciate their help greatly!!

Also thanks to the NYU staff (there are many, many people involved there)!!

 The Satellite Courses, both hand-on and didactic, continue to be a huge draw. Small groups, great teaching…what more could you ask for??  Nearly every session was filled to capacity, a fairly amazing thing when you consider all that is going on and the proximity of the meeting to the Holidays. The directors of each satellite session are truly responsible for the success of each individual program, and so we want to thank those individuals specifically:  Frank Kasmin, Nikhil Kumta, Ira Jacobson, Joesph Odin, Reem Sharaiha, Violeta Popov, Sammy Ho, Frank Gress, Amrita Sethi, and Arvind Trindade; all did an amazing job!!

 We also ran the Annual New York GI Fellows Endoscopy Course on Wednesday.  It was a full day Program for 36 GI Fellows in training, and featured a full range of lectures and hands-on training, with 12 specific hands-on stations for luminal and pancreaticobiliary teaching.  Amazing.  Thanks to the group that led that effort this year, Chris DiMaio, Adam Goodman, Reem Sharaiha and Stavros Stavropoulos. 

 A special enormous thank you to Karen Cervenka, the Society’s Managing Director, for being so incredible.  Karen works seemingly endlessly (and then more!) to put every aspect of this very complicated Course together, and she once again did a simply phenomenal job.  Her enthusiasm, energy and dedication are very much appreciated!!!!  Many others at Digestive Health Works also worked very hard on our behalf…thanks to Bina Mesheimer, Robin Weidy, Barbara Connell and everyone else who contributed behind the scenes. 

 Thanks also to Montefiore CME, and in particular Nada Piacentino, Marilyn Sasso and Vic Hatcher for their help. Nada retired earlier this month, and we thank her as well for all her years of dedication to NYSGE and our Programs.

 We still miss Florence Lefcourt, the “heart and the soul of the Society”, but she “continues to be there” as well. Regular tributes to her remind us all of the wonderful woman who led us for so many years!!

The NYSGE Council helped whip the Program into shape many months ago, and we appreciate their efforts as well.  Today’s version of the Course is really built on the Courses of 20, 30 and now over 40 years ago…we thank the many NYSGE council members over all the years, as well as the original founders of the Society, and appreciate all they did to shape the Society and to shape this Course. Also, congratulations to the Society’s current President, Seth Gross, who has had a most successful year as President!!

Most of all, we want to thank you, the Faculty of this year’s Course. You took time away from your busy schedules to join us, traveling from far and wide (Belgium, Italy and every corner of the US), worked really hard on syllabus contributions and high quality presentations packed with videos, photos and cutting edge information.  We know how difficult that can be, and just want to express our sincere gratitude for all that each of you did. The spirit of collegiality is so readily apparent; we all work together really well, and that is terrific.  One more truly important thing…we all seemed to have loads of fun, and that’s maybe the best marker that things continue to go so well!! 

Yes, the 42nd Annual NYSGE Course was indeed a special one, and so thanks one more time for being part of it.   Our best wishes for a wonderful Holiday season and a Happy and Healthy New Year from all of us to all of you!!

 

Dave

Patrick

Tamas

Barbara

Nancy

Greg

Sammy

Adam

Karen

NYSGE 2017 Finishes With A Bang!

The December, 2017 NYSGE Annual Course had the most registrants ever, totaling 735!!

In fact, registration was 60 people more than last year!! We also had over 200 Workshop and Symposia registrants, at last count. This remains the largest regional GI meeting in the USA each year, and trails behind only DDW and the ACG meeting in terms of attendance.

There were about 87 faculty, 41 presentations in the main session, 24 presentations in the Nurses and Associates program, and countless others in the satellite seminars.

Additionally, there were 5 separate satellite and hands-on sessions during the Course, and several other special Programs. These sessions are each unique, innovative and in a word, outstanding.

We had attendees from all over the US and around the world, a testimony to the far reaching word of mouth “buzz” there is about this Course each year.

On top of all that, there were five innovative lunchtime symposia, and 11 special lectures, including the Florence Lefcourt Lecture given by Dr. Larry Brandt, the David Falkenstein Lecture, given by Dr. David Carr-Locke, the Ed Bini Lecture, given by Dr. Jon Cohen, the ASGE President’s Lecture by Karen Woods, the NYSGE President’s Address by Dr. Chris DiMaio, the Richard Mc Cray Lecture, given by Dr. Sid Winawer, and the Peter Steven’s lecture, given by Dr. Phil Katz. We also were pleased to welcome the current ACG President, Dr. Irving Pike, to our Faculty.

We had an incredible scientific poster session, again led by Drs. Satish Nagula and Susana Gonzalez. This year we had over 80 different authors who submitted nearly 50 posters, with several entries from outside the NYC area!!  The poster session review was done along with a cocktail reception on Thursday evening. The room was packed; this is indeed a popular event!  The always popular Peter Steven’s Video Forum, led by Drs. Anthony Starpoli, Tamas Ganda and Nikhil Kumta, again was a huge success, with 4 outstanding videos.  The Fellow’s Forum on Thursday evening was superb, coordinated by Drs. Michelle Kim and Brian Bosworth; the feedback was all good.

The Doris C. Barnie Nurses and Associates Program, skillfully arranged as always by Barbara Zuccala and Nancy Schlossberg, again was a huge success, with outstanding lectures and interactive sessions. The Nurses and Associates program this year attracted well over 200 participants, all of whom were raving about the quality of the program. A huge thank you to Barbara and Nancy; we appreciate their efforts immensely.

The Live from New York Course was packed with a range of incredible cases again this year…our most sincere gratitude to Dr. Gregory Haber for the unbelievable amount of energy and effort he puts into directing this truly outstanding piece of the Course each and every year.  Big time thanks to Dr. Frank Gress as well for his co-leadership again this year.   The NYU-Langone location was excellent.  The quality of the HD transmission is spectacular; even more impressive is the quality of the material being presented and the quality of the Faculty doing the procedures and commenting on the care…fascinating procedures at the cutting edge of gastroenterology explained by masters in their field!!

Thanks to our out of town guests at NYU, Drs. Juergen Hochberger, Laurent Palazzo, Chris Thompson and Shyam Varadarajulu, who were simply amazing, as well as to our NYC Faculty, who were equally awesome!

Thanks as well to all the panelists at the Marriott, who really were very lively and provocative this year, many of whom spent parts of both days with us…the panel discussions really brought out critical decision making points in each case…many thanks!! Special thanks on the panels to Drs. Doug Howell and Mouen Khashab, and Nancy Schlossberg, who traveled from far away to join our educational panels.  We had special “Mentored by the Masters” programs, enhancing Fellows’ education during the live cases on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning; many thanks to the ten Faculty members who led the way there.

Also, we can’t thank Dr. David Robbins enough.  David is now the master of the hugely important role of being behind the scenes at the live course…really making it all happen, but rarely seen!!  We couldn’t have done it without him!!

Phil Joseph and his team at Advance Concepts get big time kudos as well.  Their audiovisual and technical expertise is beyond amazing and we appreciate their help greatly!!

Also thanks to the NYU staff (there are many, many people involved there)!!

The Satellite Courses, both hand-on and didactic, continue to be a huge draw. Small groups, great teaching…what more could you ask for??  Nearly every session was filled to capacity, a fairly amazing thing when you consider all that is going on and the proximity of the meeting to the Holidays.  A huge thank you to Drs. Brian Bosworth and Jon Cohen, who really innovated years ago to get these Programs going and who continue to help them thrive.  The directors of each satellite session are truly responsible for the success of each individual program, and so we want to thank those individuals specifically:  Drs. Felice Schnoll-Sussman, Reem Sharaiha, Ira Jacobson, Frank Kasmin and David Hass; all did an amazing job!!

The Hands-on and Demonstration areas, a unique and very popular feature of the Course, again conceived years ago and designed expertly by Dr. Jon Cohen, was superb once more, and seems to always be popular. Many thanks to Brian Bosworth, who continued this year to greatly help with the organization of this piece of the course. Thanks once again to Dr. Kai Matthes and his “team”, who are invaluable in getting this together and who provide many of the ex-vivo models and tissue specimens that we use. Finally, many thanks to the many faculty who helped out in the hands-on areas.

A special huge thank you to Karen Cervenka, the Society’s Managing Director, for being who she is.  Karen works seemingly endlessly to put every aspect of this very complicated Course together, and she once again, incredibly, did a simply phenomenal job.  Her enthusiasm, energy and dedication are very much appreciated!!!!  Many others at Digestive Health Works also worked very hard on our behalf…thanks to Bina Mesheimer, Robin Weidy, Barbara Connell and everyone else who contributed behind the scenes.

Thanks also to Montefiore CME, and in particular Nada Piacentino, Marilyn Sasso and Vic Hatcher for their help.

We still miss Florence Lefcourt, the “heart and the soul of the Society”, but she “continues to be there” as well. Regular tributes to her remind us all of the wonderful woman who led us for so many years!!

The NYSGE Council helped whip the Program into shape many months ago, and we appreciate their efforts as well.  Today’s version of the Course is really built on the Courses of 20, 30 and now over 40 years ago…we thank the many NYSGE council members over all the years, as well as the original founders of the Society, and appreciate all they did to shape the Society and to shape this Course. Also, congratulations to the Society’s current President, Dr. Chris DiMaio, who has had a most successful year as President!!

Most of all, we want to thank you, the Faculty of this year’s Course. You took time away from your busy schedules to join us, traveling from far and wide (France, Germany and every corner of the US), worked really hard on syllabus contributions and high quality presentations packed with videos, photos and cutting edge information.  We know how difficult that can be, and just want to express our sincere gratitude for all that each of you did. The spirit of collegiality is so readily apparent; we all work together really well, and that is terrific.  One more truly important thing…we all seemed to have loads of fun, and that’s maybe the best marker that things continue to go so well!!

Yes, the 41st Annual NYSGE Course was indeed a special one, and so thanks one more time for being part of it.   Best wishes for a Happy and Healthy New Year from all of the course directors and organizers to the faculty and attendees!!

David A. Greenwald, MD

Director of Clinical Gastroenterology and Endoscopy

Mount Sinai Hospital