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