The Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (KSGE) was founded on August 14, 1976. Over the last 40 years, it has become one of the largest institutes in Korea with over 8,000 members. The Seminar of KSGE has been regularly held biannually since 1989 and over 3,000 members participate in each seminar.
The most critical role of the KSGE is to promote the active academic activities of its members. In order to expand its capacity, the first International Digestive Endoscopy Network (IDEN) was held in 2012, since then IDEN has been held every year. Through IDEN, we had a joint symposium with American Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy in 2014 and European Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy in 2015. These two joint-symposiums has been held in every IDEN. Total of 843 doctors from 32 countries participated in IDEN 2019.
IDEN 2020 will take place from September 24 to 26 in Busan with the theme of ‘One Step Ahead!, Towards the Best Insights on Advanced Endoscopy’, IDEN has been held usually in June, however, it is postponed to September due to the concerns of COVID-19 this year. We are expecting more than 1000 participants from over 30 countries.
Also, we have been running the program named as ‘Asia Young Endoscopist Awards Program (AYEA)’ since 2014 to promote technical advancement and collaboration among international societies of GI endoscopy. Every year, around 200 young endoscopists have been participated in this program so far. From this year ‘AYEA’ would be changed to ‘International Young Endoscopist Awards(IYEA)’ in order to expand worldwide.
In this year, KSGE is organizing the fourth edition of ‘Korea Digestive Week 2020 (KDDW 2020)’ from November 19 to 21 in Seoul with seven member societies, the Korean Society of Gastroenterology, Korean Association for the Study of the Liver, Korean Society of Neurogastroenterology and Motility, Korean Pancreatobiliary Association, Korean College of Helicobacter and Upper Gastrointestinal Research, Korean Association for the Study of Intestinal Diseases, and Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Cancer.
In 2012, the first National Endoscopic Quality Improvement Program was performed by KSGE, and 1,016 hospitals with over 100 beds were evaluated their quality of endoscopic ability. Since then, this program has been held every 3 years by KSGE.
In 1981, the first issue of the Journal of Korean Society of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy was published. This journal was published in English since September 2011 issue under the official title of Clinical Endoscopy (CE). The journal was linked to PubMed Central (PMC) on June 28, 2012, and Scopus on November 11, 2013.
Currently, 8,300 doctors and scientists are regular members of KSGE. Since 1996, KSGE has issued the Subspecialty Board of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy to doctors who have completed one year of fellowship in the division of gastroenterology at 96 training hospitals, which are qualified by KSGE. The number of the accumulated members of Subspecialty Board is 7,673 in 2020.