The primary goal of the Educational Workshops organised by the ECCO Education Committee is to harmonise IBD practices within ECCO Country Members by presenting the practical use of the ECCO Guidelines on Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

Manuel Barreiro-de Acosta © ECCO

The 70^th ECCO Educational Workshop took place at the Hilton Bakirkoy Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey, on June 3, 2023. This event, the first ECCO Workshop of the year, brought together participants from Turkey and Romania and provided the perfect conclusion to the Turkish Inflammatory Bowel Disease Annual Meeting, which had started on the previous day. The workshop featured interactive discussion on various clinical scenarios and hot topics in IBD.

Pascal Juillerat  © ECCO

Dear ECCO Members,

What a wonderful ECCO Congress we had in Copenhagen! It was truly lovely to see everyone again at our first face-to-face Congress since 2020.

With summer just a week away, I am happy to update you all on the new and exciting content on the e-CCO Learning Platform.

In my previous letter, I mentioned the revamped, new-look platform. If you have not had the chance to explore it yet, I recommend that you take a look! 

I am happy to announce that we have introduced new content on the e-CCO Learning Platform:

IBD Intensive Course for Trainees © ECCO

The 22^nd ECCO IBD Intensive Course for Trainees designed for residents, fellows in gastroenterology and junior faculty will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, on February 21, 2024, immediately prior to our next Congress. We are pleased to inform you that the preliminary programme for this course is already available.

The 3^rd ECCO Postgraduate Course in IBD, entitled "It's getting more complicated!", was successfully held on-site during the 18^th ECCO Congress in Copenhagen in March 2023. The course was split into two sessions, with the first session focusing on common complications in IBD practice, which were presented by renowned speakers who are key opinion leaders in the field. The second session was an interactive discussion with expert panelists, who discussed two vignettes that looked at practical assessment and decision making in the context of complicated Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis.

Mariangela Allocca  © ECCO

Finally, after a hiatus of two years owing to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the 10^th ECCO Ultrasound Workshop – Advanced in collaboration with ESGAR & IBUS took place physically at ECCO’23 in Copenhagen.

Ultrasound and MRI Portion

Mariangela Allocca © ECCO

Uri Kopylov © ECCO

The 4^th ECCO Basic Imaging Workshop in collaboration with ESGAR & IBUS opened with two introductory lectures on what to look for in intestinal ultrasound (IUS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), given by Christian Maaser (Germany) and Pasquale Paolantonio (Italy), respectively. These lectures introduced the hands-on part of the workshop. Delegates (n=60 in the morning and 60 in the afternoon session) were subdivided into small groups at 12 different stations, where, with the support of expert tutors – one radiologist and one gastroenterologist – they interactively discussed MRI exams and performed sonographic evaluations, employing hands-on IUS simulators on different IBD cases.

Pascal Juillerat  © ECCO

Dear ECCO Members,

Greetings to you and your families! I am sure you are all looking forward to the holidays and spending some quality time with all your loved ones.

I am excited to announce our revamped e-CCO Learning Platform!

With the new, and completely re-designed website, everything you need is now just one click away. The three main pillars of the e-Learning platform are now front and centre: The IBD Curriculum is here to serve you! It is a complete and comprehensive curriculum which outlines the need-to-know for gastroenterologists in order to develop expertise in the field of IBD. The e-Guide is a practical tool to help you manage IBD patients by visualising the ECCO Guidelines as algorithms based on the main UC and CD ECCO Guidelines. Of course, the guidance given by the ECCO e-Guide is based on evidence and validated processes. The e-Library, is your portal to access our large selection of IBD content! Anything from Congress Presentations, Videos, Podcasts, Tools and Skills, Congress Abstracts and much more!

With the re-designed website, you are now able to access all of the content with your mobile phone or tablet, too.

4th ECCO Basic Imaging Workshop in Collaboration with ESGAR & IBUS

Christian Maaser © ECCO

Uri Kopylov © ECCO

In 2023 the Educational Programme at the ECCO Congress will again include two combined workshops devoted to the imaging of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD). The first will be centered on basic endoscopy, ultrasound and MRI while the second will focus on advancements in intestinal ultrasound. Both workshops will be possible thanks to the extensive cooperation of gastroenterologists with experience in intestinal imaging from ECCO and our partner societies, the European Society of Gastrointestinal and Abdominal Radiology (ESGAR) and the International Bowel Ultrasound (IBUS) group.

The 4^th ECCO Basic Imaging Workshop in collaboration with ESGAR and IBUS will educate attendees in how to make a precise diagnosis and how to better direct the therapeutic management of IBD patients using the latest imaging technologies. It is designed for gastroenterologists, endoscopists, surgeons, paediatricians, pathologists and other interdisciplinary medical experts interested in diagnostic imaging and endoscopy of IBD. The course has been highly successful and much requested over the past few years, and we have decided to run it twice on the same day this year to enable more participants to attend.

Konstantinos Karmiris © ECCO

The 21st ECCO IBD Intensive Course for Trainees, Copenhagen 2023

The IBD Intensive Course for Trainees will take place over one day on Wednesday, March 1, 2023, prior to the start of the main ECCO Congress.

 The ECCO IBD Intensive Course for Trainees has become a tradition. It is the oldest ECCO Educational Initiative, having been conceived back in 2003 before the launch of the ECCO Congress, and is the cornerstone of the Educational Committee’s activities. I remember attending the “2^nd Intensive Clinical Course for Residents, Fellows and Junior Faculty”, delivered as an affiliated course during the 140^th Falk Symposium in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 2004. This was perhaps the most comprehensive IBD course that I had ever attended as a trainee and it inspired me to further in-depth engagement with IBD.