Thanks From Our Past President
2009 saw a massive upheaval within the ISGE.During my presidency I sought to bring stability and some forward progression to a Society, which for many reasons known to most,has struggled to achieve its rightful place amongst the great endoscopy societies world-wide
.Understandably with the change of leadership came new ideas and initiatives. As you all know these included the establishment of a PCO to deal with congresses,secretariat,banking etc. Such a luxury was able to be contemplated,rightly or otherwise,as a result of a healthy Society bank account. Secondly a major shake-up of the training program was suggested without,in my view,giving due consideration to all the good work,that the present,and past,chairmen of the TC had overseen for the past 10 years.
Possibly as a result of these proposals together with an approach form the AAGL to “join” forces,the Society was again in turmoil.I,for one,had vehemently opposed the concept of a Federation put forward by Jack Sciarra 7 years ago.I thought the the ISGE was strong enough to stand alone shoulder to shoulder with the ESGE and the AAGL.
In retrospect I think that my opposition was probably misguided and I should have been more supportive of Jack’s work.
I felt that after I stepped aside as President that total change was not a good idea and that financial support accrued through my time as president would be very quickly used up.I was happy with the way the Secretariat was getting records back together,training was working well,particularly in Asia and South and Central America .The Society has a long and sad history of recouping monies from conferences for all sorts of reasons not to be discussed here.When the approach came fro AAGL I saw it as a way to continue all the things we are well known for ,in particular,the training program and that the members of the AAGL would come on board.Although the AAGL is a bigger organization I believed that we could work to gether for the betterment of both Societies.At no time during the discussions within our Board did I ever think that the ISGE would become the adopted child of “Big Daddy”.
As many of you are aware I am now on the Board of Trustees of the AAGL and I thought this would be a nice marriage that I could possibly work satisfactorily to facilitate a happy and successful union.The whole Board of the ISGE thrashed out the pros and cons of such a marriage and,through a very democratic processs decided not to proceed with the amalgamation or “take over” by the AAGL.
I think at the end of the day the right decision has been reached as I believe that if it had proceeded it would have fractured the ISGE even more. Now is the time to heal ourselves get stronger ,increase our membership and our sponsorship. I think that the protracted discussions in their own way have made the ISGE a stronger band of men and women and,if the enthusiastic debate that has taken place over the last 9 months is any indication,the ISGE has a very good future.It would be a great pity if all of those members who put in so much over that time now disappear under a rock and leave it all to a very few committed Board members.Whenever anybody takes a leadership position it takes time to find one’s way and I urge all our members to get behind Stefano and his committee and help them forge forward and insure the long-term survival and success of our great Society.
For me,as a Trustee of the AAGL ,it is a requirement that I step aside from the ExCo of the ISGE.I am still your past President and I am committed to the ISGE as I always have been.I hope with the passage of time that all societies can work more closely to achieve our aims of providing the best in surgical healthcare to our patients.I hope to see you all in future at endoscopy meetings around the world and in particular in Sydney in May.
I have enjoyed the friendships,the good times and occasionally not so good but just remember we are all just trying to do the best for our ISGE.
Best wishes and “Cheers” Peter Maher
