No one rocks Cleveland like SAGES!
Another spring and another fantastic SAGES meeting. Program chairs Drs. Marylise Boutros, Caitlin Halbert and Eric Pauli continued our string of amazing, content-rich, annual conventions. When 2,500 attendees descend upon a SAGES meeting, they expect to see the highest quality, patient-centered educational content, aligned with the leading edge of surgical innovation. We delivered the latest on the entire gastrointestinal tract—from esophagus to rectum, solid organ, and abdominal wall, across six concurrent rooms for one of our grandest offerings yet. We covered robotics to magnets, and sustainability to global outreach. We embraced patient engagement by inviting those who have lived the journey of surgical care to participate as faculty. We expanded our innovation pipeline by introducing our early innovators program. Our Gerald Marks lecturer, Professor Holst, walked us through the incredible journey of discovery of gut regulatory peptides and the profound impact the resulting pharmaceuticals are having on our practices. As our Karl Storz lecturer, Dr. Andrea MacNeill made a compelling call to action on behalf of planetary health and the urgent need to embrace the environmental impact of our profession. Our President, Dr. Patricia Sylla, provided personal and courageous stories of triumph over adversity, inspiring us to remain vigilant toward systemic biases in the healthcare system. To wrap it all up, we owned the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the Friday night main event.
As I unpretentiously accept the honour of serving SAGES for the coming year, I plan to focus my presidency on the most important asset that we hold together as a society: our members. SAGES membership crested 7,500 in the last year with more than 10% directly serving the society through dedicated participation in our 45 committees and task forces. SAGES committees cover a wide range of clinical expertise, practice settings, education initiatives, fundamentals programs, and technologies from artificial intelligence to space surgery. For the practicing gastrointestinal surgeon, SAGES is truly your home.
Despite our accomplishments, I have heard repeatedly from fellow surgeons, within SAGES and those missing out, that they feel increasingly marginalized by the growing complexities of the healthcare system. When they wish to address advances in technology, sustainability, equity, and diversity, or updates in best practice, they simply do not have a voice. This year we are going to begin reversing that quandary through a new SAGES initiative, LEAD UP. Our LEAD UP team will take a multi-pronged approach to providing SAGES members with the knowledge and skills (dare I say attitude) that they need to advocate for their patients and their profession and to be heard. It is a tall order, but a novel, pressing need. I am incredibly excited to empower our LEAD UP team and, in turn, our membership. We will keep you current on this process as it unfolds.
In addition, as our profession becomes increasingly driven by technology, the interaction between human and machine must continue to be carefully engineered and nurtured to protect our physical and mental capacities. In the coming year, we are going to dive deeply back into the importance of surgical ergonomics.
It is a genuinely remarkable privilege to be tasked with leadership of this society, which has been an inspiration throughout my entire professional career. I look eagerly toward working with each one of you to liberate your creativity and cultivate extraordinary opportunities. Let us continue to innovate, educate, and collaborate to improve patient care.
With gratitude,
Christopher Schlachta, MD