BASL Annual Meeting success
Date Added: 04/10/11
Feedback from the 2011 BASL Annual Meeting, held at the Royal College of Physicians, 7-9 September was once again overwhelmingly positive. “Well constructed, highly informative and enjoyable,” and “Getting better year on year, the best BASL yet” were just two delegate comments.
Over the three days, the BASL Committee and Secretariat welcomed more than 300 delegates to the meeting. Sessions covered transplant, alcoholic liver disease, viral hepatitis, basic science and poster and oral presentations of submitted abstracts - published to a supplement to the journal Gut 2011; 60(suppl 2).
Outgoing BASL President, Professor Peter Hayes, commented: “With the ever increasing prevalence and importance of liver disease it is essential that Hepatology has a strong professional voice. The recent highly successful meeting clearly illustrated that BASL represents this voice and I am very proud to have been associated with the Society's development for over the past two years. I wish all involved with the society the very best for the future.”
The BASL Committee brought together some of the world’s leading specialists in their field including: Dr Richard Freeman, Dartmouth Medical School, Dr Marc Bourliere, Marseille’s Hôpital Saint Joseph, Professor Fred Poordad, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Los Angeles, Heiner Wedemeyer, Hannover’s Medizinische Hochschule and Dr Michael Lucey, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health.
One of the highlights of the
meeting was the presentation of the Dame Shelia Sherlock research prize and
lecture. This prize is awarded annually to recognise the contribution of Dame
Sheila Sherlock to the development of hepatology as a discipline in its own
right.
In keeping with Dame Sheila’s enthusiasm for fostering young researchers, the
eponymous prize is awarded to young investigators without substantive posts in
either medicine or science for their hepatology research contributions. This
year’s joint winners were Dr Wing-Kin Syn from University of
Birmingham and Dr Tom G Bird from University
of Edinburgh.
Distinguished Service awards
were presented during the Annual Dinner to Professor Keith Rolles and Professor Peter
Brunt. The prestigious venue of the Dinner for 2011 was the Tower of London, including
for guests a tour of the Crown Jewells.
The BASL Nurse
Forum meeting was held in parallel on the second day, Thursday 7 September. The
full and varied programme covered issues in pregnancy, pharmacology, ascites, community
alcohol detox, the National Liver Strategy and liver transplantation.
A session was also held on the Nurse Leadership Toolkits, an e-learning resource for nurses working with patients with liver disease, to be launched later this year on the BASL Clinical Community – www.clinicalcommunities.net/basl
Access BASL Annual Meeting presentations and abstracts
To extend the footprint of the meeting, BASL will post presentations from the meeting on to the BASL Clinical Community website. These, along with BMS sponsored podcasts with Phil Harrison, Ashley Brown and Dan Forton recorded at the meeting, are offered as a member benefit – join now to take advantage:
http://www.basl.org.uk/member-benefits/
Looking forward – DDF in 2012
In 2012, BASL will be represented at the Digestive Disorders Foundation Meeting, to be held 17-20 June at the ACC, Liverpool. The DDF meeting will be the first combined meeting of multiple organisations specialised in Digestive Disorders, including: BASL, BSG, AUGIS and BAPEN. More details to follow.