Mohammad Reza Zali
Director,
[1]As
the field of medicine is continuously changing, with growing and rapid advancing
genetics and molecular biology, which is directly related to gastrointestinal
diseases?
We should know that
gastroenterology is also changing and we need to protect and expand this
scientific endeavor to ensure that the rate of basic and translational discovery
keeps pace with needs and interests of our GI patients to ensure our practices
evolve with the field and with advances of science and technology.
It is important for us, as
gastroenterologists, to consistently stay with the latest news and researches
and to recognize and identify challenges in the future and to see the
opportunities to determine how well we can care for patients with GI disorders.
Therefore, we must realize that technological developments in the area of
gastroenterology imaging and testing, especially those related to cancer
prevention, are reliable, nevertheless, common endoscopy procedures currently
performed by trained GI will not be useful in near future.
We know that any changes may
create stress for gastroenterologists, but we should be prepared for the future
to ensure that sciences and practice of gastroenterology continue to succeed in
order to achieve effective changes, nevertheless, it is important to face
significant challenges in our society to maintain work values and to develop
innovative ways to establish commendable gastroenterology researches in order to
help and ensure qualified and promising researches in academic setting.
We have a clear commitment to
train and educate gastroenterologists at all level of training and we need to
bring genetic, proteomic, biology, technology and clinic to gather for better
practice based on research priorities and needs as outlined by our scientific
committee. In the mean time, we must emphasis on cancer prevention, early
diagnosis, obesity, aging population, inflammatory bowel diseases, hepatitis,
and chronic liver diseases.
We need to provide and
support trained manpower to fulfill our needs and expectation in near future and
to enhance interaction between basic scientists and clinicians with the aim of
facilitating the diagnosis.
Furthermore, we need to train
physician-scientist as MD-PhD for transitional research from bed to bench.
Running a successful research program as MD-PhD, we need to bring young
investigators to the center and generate enough funding to support them and
provides security for physicians and scientists to be able to address their
careers and plan for future.
On these bases, we will hold
an MD-PhD student program as a postgraduate course in conjunction with
fellowship program in gastroenterology. Meanwhile, academic skill workshops
should be arranged to assist junior faculty members and trainees in order to
improve their understanding of academic procedures and to develop their skills
in a high competitive academic environment.
This program will encourage
MD-PhD students and junior faculties to consider academic careers in GI series
of lectures, meanwhile, interactive discussion will emphasize on the broad
spectrum of GI research opportunities.
On the other hand,
gastroenterologists must be ensured to have necessary tools to provide the best
care for their patients. This can be accomplished by practice guidelines,
providing necessary resources for efficient practice management through valuable
grant funding. We will be able to support clinicians as specialties to combine
clinical practice with bench research in order to contribute its role in
improving patient care.
We should revamp GI training
program and promote basic scientists, clinical investigators, endoscopists and
technologists to develop GI division in order to fulfill not only the increasing
demands of our patients but also the education obligation.
We will continue to support
gastroenterology-associated research programs which can potentially improve our
patient care. Putting patient interests and satisfaction first, all else follow
from the basic principal.