7th PGI Gastrointestinal Emergencies Update, 30th Sep to 2nd October, 2023

The Department of Gastroenterology, PGIMER, will be conducting a single-theme conference on Gastrointestinal Emergencies between 30th Sep and 2nd October 2023.
This national-level workshop will be attended by faculty and delegates from all over India. The workshop will focus on appropriate and evidence-based management of emergencies related to gastrointestinal and liver diseases. Gastrointestinal emergencies are an important cause of morbidity and mortality globally. It has been shown that goal-directed management in the golden early hours of presentation can potentially improve clinical outcomes. Gastrointestinal emergencies include those related to gastrointestinal bleeding, acute pancreatitis, complicated gallbladder disease, and complications of liver failure (bleeding, infection, hepatic encephalopathy). Apart from these, the management of patients admitted to the intensive care unit will also be in focus. There are sessions such as intestinal obstruction, inability to swallow, severe manifestations of inflammatory bowel disease, and foreign body ingestion dedicated to emergencies related to the GI tract. Most GI meetings tend to focus on a specific disease and the care of emergencies is often ignored in such meetings. The 7th edition of this program affirms the ongoing interest of the department in reducing the knowledge gap between first-contact doctors who manage patients in emergency and experts.
The chairperson for this conference is Prof Usha Dutta and the chief scientific advisor for this conference is Prof Rakesh Kochhar, the co-organizing secretaries are Dr. Anupam Kumar Singh and Dr Vaneet Jearth. The faculty for this conference includes senior gastroenterologists from across the country who are experts in the management of gastroenterological emergencies including Prof DN Reddy, Prof SK Sarin, Dr Mahesh Goenka, Prof Anoop Saraya, Prof Pramod Garg, Dr Ajay Kumar, Prof Sandeep Nijhawan among others. The delegates will be gastroenterologists, trainee gastroenterologists, and physicians from across the country. There will be a hands-on session on Sep 30, 2023, at Zakir Hall, in which training on various models and practical clinical situations will be imparted to residents. This session is being led by Dr Jayanta Samanta and Dr Harshal Mandavdhare. There will also be a special session on advanced endoscopy procedures by experts from other institutes. Patients with gastrointestinal emergencies are often very sick and need a standardized timely approach to improve outcomes. The meeting will focus on providing a platform to enable knowledge transfer from experts to residents and trainees, who are often the first contact physicians for patients with gastroenterological emergencies. Rapid advances in this field necessitate that doctors keep themselves abreast with the latest available evidence in the field. The meeting will seek to equip the delegates with the current knowledge and proficiency in procedures, which will hopefully translate into better patient outcomes for these conditions. The present meeting will also provide an opportunity to update the existing knowledge with recent recommendations and advice provided by the participating experts.