This message marks the official countdown to our SAGES meeting in Cleveland! It is hard to believe that in less than a month, we will be shuffling through the bustling halls of the convention center, catching up with old friends, and exchanging clinical narratives of success and challenges with the common goal of fostering learning and elevating patient care. Our program chairs, Drs. Marylise Boutros, Caitlin Halbert and Eric Pauli have put together an extraordinary program, packed with practice-enriching, innovative and patient-centered content.

This year’s program will be groundbreaking. Across five sessions on the topics of postoperative recovery, access to bariatric care, management of hernias, gastroparesis, and colorectal anastomotic leaks, patients will serve as faculty and share their unique experience. Please join me in warmly welcoming them to SAGES. This year’s program will also engage all of us in a discussion about the environmental impact of our MIS practice. Our Friday program will include several sessions with expert content and practical tips to guide us through the process of making our ORs and surgical practices more sustainable.

There will also be no shortage of fun activities throughout the meeting. Brilliantly coordinated by our program chairs and RPS Task Force volunteers, come partake in some wellness get-togethers. Take advantage of Camp SAGES Childcare while space is still available. Be ready for another memorable SAGES event that will also feature an unprecedented number of new robotic and other new technologies in our exhibit hall. Don’t forget to register! Online registration closes on April 8.

As I enter the last month of my Presidency, I reflect on how privileged I have been to witness the magnitude and impact of the work accomplished by our 41 committees and task forces to serve our 7,282 members. This past year marks several important organizational milestones and has prompted new initiatives based on deep reflection about current and future strategic priorities. I am most proud of our continued commitment to address and confront sustainability in surgical practice (SSP), and the work accomplished by our joint SAGES and EAES SSP task force. When we asked you last fall to complete a survey addressing your knowledge gaps, attitudes, interests, and involvement in sustainability, a record-breaking 1,024 members and non-members answered the call through our various social media platforms. Your responses, along with an in-depth literature review, have served as a roadmap to draft a call for action by our Societies to educate and disseminate best practices to promote environmental sustainability.

Along the same theme and in response to current and future fiscal threats, the SAGES leadership retreat held in November 2023 addressed how to sustain the continued growth of our educational programs. From streamlining workflow to consolidating activities, our young leaders identified solutions for how SAGES could sustain its educational goals through strategic partnerships, collaborations, and alternative sources of funding. The group also explored another emerging priority, namely how SAGES can engage with patients and patient advocacy groups to enrich and broaden the reach and impact of our educational products. A new Patient Engagement Task Force was created, charged with developing a process to engage effectively with patients to ensure that our clinical recommendations, guidelines, and other products are inclusive of the diverse patient perspective and align with the principles of shared decision making.

Throughout the year, I have watched with pride the dedication of our SAGES Fundamentals, Education Council and RAFT committees responding to our members’ evolving educational needs by strengthening existing testing and training programs, adapting content and delivery to increase relevance and access to a more global audience, and developing new platforms better suited for video-based learning and assessment. FLS will be launching a new, specialty agnostic MCQ exam as part of the revised FLS exam in the next few weeks. As we celebrate 10 years of the FES program serving as a competency benchmark in GI Endoscopy for General Surgery residents across the U.S., FES is now embarking on translating their didactics into Spanish. FUSE has also initiated an update of the online curriculum that will incorporate new topics including robotic energy and new device considerations. As part of SAGES global outreach, a 2-day FUSE Simulation Curriculum will be launched in India in June 2024.

And after several years of tireless efforts and pooled expertise from the Ed Council Curriculum and Development Groups, Continuing Ed Committee and Ed Resources, and with the invaluable contributions from our subject matter experts from the relevant specialties, SAGES will launch 4 online educational modules focused on core competency procedures in Bariatric (sleeve gastrectomy), Biliary (lap cholecystectomy), Colorectal (right colectomy for cancer) and Foregut (fundoplication) in mid-April, just in time for our Annual meeting! The interactive e-learning modules, which are part of the SAGES Masters Program curriculum, are populated with rich content from the SAGES video library, expert teaching and MCQ assessments. We will be seeking feedback on these modules from surgeons nearing the end of training to help inform our future e-learning efforts, including better understanding educational needs and desirable features.

Meanwhile, the SAGES video-based assessment tools, intended to assess procedural competency, are progressing well. The laparoscopic fundoplication VBA tool is now complete, and the Ed Council Assessment and Evaluation group has developed the scoring rubric for the laparoscopic cholecystectomy VBA. They are now developing their rater training program. Our RAFT committee is one of the most vibrant and active committees and their contributions to elevating our trainees’ education is nothing short of extraordinary. In addition to launching SAGES Oral Exam Preparation Courses in support of our residents, they also hosted the first Fellows Career Development course under the SAGES brand this past fall. The RAFT resident webinars remain widely popular, attended and/or viewed by thousands of trainees worldwide, with 3 more courses scheduled through June 2024. Lastly, at the Fellowship Council’s request, SAGES RAFT will co-sponsor the advanced colorectal fellowship programs, in partnership with SSAT. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome colorectal fellows into our fold.

The SAGES Guidelines Committee has concluded the year with the successful recruitment of a new Guidelines fellow and the publication and nearing-publication of 6 guidelines and/or meta-analyses on the topics of appendicitis, laparoscopy during pregnancy, peritoneal dialysis, treatment of colorectal liver metastases, and inclusion of a health equity focus in the development of SAGES guidelines. Two additional documents are under review on the topics of appendicitis and management recurrent hiatal hernia. Given the rigorous evidence-based process involved in Guideline development, which typically takes about one year to complete, we want to ensure that they address your perceived gaps in guidance in clinical practice. Therefore, we will ask you to complete a brief survey to highlight your topics of interest for future SAGES Guidelines development. Please take 5 minutes or less to complete so our efforts and resources can be re-directed towards topics that you have identified as high priority.

Following a successful launch of Global Laparoscopic Advancement Program (GLAP) training in Namibia in early 2023, which marked GLAP entry in Africa, our Global Affairs Committee launched a condensed 3-day GLAP course at the COSECSA annual meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, this past December, where 53 surgeons underwent laparoscopic simulation training. In addition, Global piloted a feasibility trial for remote FLS testing and scoring. Global is now refining a GLAP Pro training program that incorporates completion of an expanded online FLS curriculum, tutorial on how to build a low-cost simulator to practice FLS skills, followed by on-site hands-on simulation training in FLS skills with FLS coaching. A proposal to evaluate the impact of GLAP Pro on FLS test passing rates among 45 COSECSA trainees from 3 sub-Saharan African countries, was awarded a 2024 SAGES Research Grant. This study will also serve to validate remote FLS testing and scoring and facilitate expansion of FLS testing across Africa. Meanwhile, both on-site and virtual GLAP courses are planned in Costa Rica, Guadalajara, Monterrey and El Salvador, ran by local GLAP-trained faculty. Most of the GLAP team is led by SAGES volunteers with a passion for education and supported by the SAGES Education and Research Foundation, and a prior grant from Dr. Pon Satitpunwaycha. SAGES efforts to scale laparoscopic skills training in Africa and South America are directly proportional to the support received from our members. Please consider a targeted donation towards GLAP at https://www.sagesfoundation.org/donate-now/one-time-gift/ and scroll down to Giving Plus.

We are pleased to announce the official launch of the SAGES Research Network Database, an initiative led by our Research Committee to build a diverse research ecosystem within SAGES that also provides the opportunity for our members interested in participating in investigator-initiated and/or sponsored clinical trials, to be matched as a trial site, based on location, practice type, investigator, clinical and research profile. Since launching in February 2024, the RDN has received 61 submissions, with a target of 100 site applications by the time of the Cleveland meeting. Please enter your institution as a potential research site. The Research Committee has also completed their grant review cycle with a record 60 research applications, 11 career development awards, and 54 medical student research award applications received this year! This is nearly double the number of applications from 2 years ago. Our organization takes no greater pride than to support innovative and impactful research and to empower talented future leaders.

Fresh off the press! The SAGES CVS challenge proposal was officially accepted as an in-person event at MICCAI in October 2024! This project has been led by the SAGES AI task force, in collaboration with industry partners and academic institutions. An astounding 1,488 videos were submitted by surgeons from 57 countries in support of this challenge, and we thank each and every one of you who has shared videos and contributed to the success of this groundbreaking computer vision challenge. This is the first time a surgical society has ever participated in a project to leverage AI-driven intraoperative assistance for enhancing surgical safety. The challenge will officially be launched at our Annual Meeting, when the first batch of 250 fully annotated videos will be released to the public! After all 1,000 annotated videos have been released, prizes will be awarded to the winners at MICCAI. Through this important initiative, SAGES has developed the blueprint for developing a video annotation training curriculum that will facilitate participation in other computer vision projects.

SAGES continues to innovate and bring our members the latest and most exciting new technologies and techniques in our fields through specialty meetings, and you can read more about the 2024 NBT Innovation Weekend at https://www.sages.org/2024-nbt-innovation-weekend-report/.

As I wrap up my Presidency and present this last report, I reflect on how much SAGES has grown and evolved since its difficult and contentious birth out of a group of passionate innovators with a vision of advancing surgical care through endoscopy. Four decades later, after building a massive footprint in surgical education, MIS and endoscopy skills training, our organization hasn’t stopped innovating, pivoting, and challenging itself relentlessly to deliver better, more efficiently, globally, equitably, safely, and sustainably. I am deeply grateful to have had the opportunity to contribute to the rich fabric of SAGES and to help shape the future of our organization. I look forward to seeing you and hearing from all of you in Cleveland.

Sincerely,

Your President

Pat Sylla