About
The Department of Gastroenterology and Hepato-Pancreatology of Erasme Hospital has been created together with the hospital in 1977. It includes several clinics : hepatology, endoscopy, gastro-intestinal oncology, pancreatology, nutrition and intestinal diseases and liver transplantation.
Therapeutic Endoscopy has been, since the beginning, one of the leading activities of our Department which has become highly specialised in the development of new techniques and clinical applications. This includes all the aspects of biliary and pancreatic endoscopy, with a special interest in the management of chronic pancreatitis, therapeutic applications in the upper GI tract (stenting, endoscopic treatment of GERD, management of early neoplasia and treatment of Barrett's esophagus), intestinal endoscopy, enteroscopy, colonoscopy and all the techniques for tumor resection (polypectomies, mucosectomies).
In this line, we organise since 1982, every year in June, a large international course called "GEEW" (Gastroenterology and Endotherapy European Workshop) including live demonstrations.
From 2024, we refocus our educational activities on the organisation, 2 or 3 times a year, of single-topic one-day meetings called “FOCUS GEEW”. These meetings will still take place in Brussels, at a few step from the Erasme Hospital on the Université Libre de Bruxelles Faculty of Medicine. We hope this new formula will meet your expectations.
Looking foward to seeing you in Brussels.
Marianna ARVANITAKIS and Arnaud LEMMERS, Course Directors
Jacques DEVIÈRE - Former Head of Department and Honorary Course Director
Our history
The Department of Gastroenterology of Erasme University Hospital was founded in 1977. This was the pioneering times of therapeutic endoscopy and Michel Cremer, who was the Chief of Department at that time, felt the need for providing education through live demonstrations in an area which was dramatically changing patient’s management. It was impossible to accomodate many observers in the rooms of therapeutic endoscopy and creating a Workshop of Endoscopy and Endotherapy allowed to provide teaching to many peoples while keeping the possibility for close interaction.
The first live course was held in Brussels in June 1982 in a technical environment which had nothing to do with the current one. Organised by an enthusiastic group of physicians led by Michel Cremer, Nadine Bourgeois and André Van Gossum, technicians and nurses, it already gathered more than 200 people. Given this initial success, the meeting thereafter was organised every year, during 40 years. The Auditorium of the Faculty of Medicine of the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Erasme Hospital becoming too small, the Workshop migrated to the Congress Centre downtown in the mid-nineties and to Brussels Expo in early 2000 until 2022. In 2023, we came back in an auditorium located on the “Erasme campus" of the Faculty of Medicine of the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Michel CREMER retired in 1998 (and unfortunately passed away in 2008), but his heritage was maintained by his former group over the years, under the direction of his successor, Jacques DEVIERE.
The Department of Gastroenterology has become much larger and includes Hepatology, Transplantation, Pancreatology, Digestive Oncology and Digestive Surgery, offering an ideal platform for teaching the integrated management of patients with GI diseases.
This is the reason why the name of our annual congress was changed in the early 2000 into “GastroEnterology and Endotherapy Workshop” (GEEW) to stress the role of endoscopy and endotherapy as a tool of integrated medical-surgical gastroenterology practice.
GEEW offer an overview of all the techniques of diagnostic and therapy involving endoscopy, which may be offered to patients with GI, liver, pancreatic or oncological diseases. These live demonstrations are always performed together by members of our team in collaboration with the most respected and recognized international Faculty members. Patients are always considered with the highest respect and perfectly informed about the purpose of their treatment and involvement of foreign Faculty as a plus for their optimal management.
Practice is one thing but science is another important one ; this is for this reason that “State-of-the-Art Lectures” of highest quality are integrated during the meeting. During live demonstrations, to favour discussion and perfect information, the latest results of medical litterature are shown and discussed.
Over these years, we have been indebted to our patients who accepted to be treated in the setting of these live demonstrations and highly appreciated the quality of care.
The 2 last strengths of this meeting are the technical team, which has been managed by the same people over 40 years, that means that they know perfectly what should be shown in order to improve the quality of teaching and the administrative organisation, which is taken in charge by Nancy Beauprez and a small team since 25 years, to the satisfaction of everyone.
The feedback of participants has always been welcome and extremely useful in improving our performance, interaction between expert faculties and attendees being the cornerstone of this meeting.
