Abstract
One of the key principles of UEG is to improve the standards of care in gastroenterology, and to promote an ever greater understanding of digestive and liver disease. This ambitious aim is championed by UEG Education, with an impressive and expanding portfolio of activities to provide education to over 22000 specialists and researchers across the spectrum of digestive health and hepatology. So what does UEG Education do, or more importantly, what can UEG Education do for you?
UEG e-learning
Unbelievably it is only a little over 3 years since the UEG decided to take the plunge into e-learning. What started out as a good idea to expand the horizons of the material at UEG Week soon spiralled as the opportunities of e-learning to deliver the UEG's mission became clear. The initial vision and stewardship of Lars Lundell (UEG Education chair) and Niek de Wit (Taskforce chair) was matched by the secretariat in Vienna and a small group of enthusiasts on the taskforce. What can e-learning do? Multi-media? CME courses? On-line documents and posters? Blogs? To get things moving an IT partner was brought in, followed by two keen web-editors with an interest in education and e-learning (Bjorn Rembacken and I). Within 4 months Europe's gastroenterology community had a new friend from UEG: OLGa (Online Learning in Gastroenterology), and she was introduced at UEG Week in Barcelona in 2010. OLGa's rebrand to UEG e-learning in 2012 did not slow the progress.
The first three years has seen the vast majority of sister societies of the UEG join the project, with national societies due to follow. The result has been well over 5000 UEG e-learning users; CME accredited courses; over 1100 multimedia items; and over 11000 documents. Putting it another way, if you watched one multimedia item every day you would be busy for 3 years (and 30 years for documents!). That's why a huge effort has been put into ensuring the categorization and taxonomy of UEG e-learning is state-of-the-art. Every visitor will have different interests and learning needs, so be assured you will be able to find what you're looking for (and I bet you'll end up looking at something you weren't looking for). Users can rate what they have, and soon will be able to recommend items to colleagues.
UEG e-learning has not just been developed as a virtual library. We are working to provide you with a holistic learning environment for CME courses (5 and counting), and building an on-line community for professionals with an interest in digestive and liver disease. There are long and short CME accredited courses to take, with a 4 hour multi-disciplinary course on dyspepsia coming later this year (with UEG Journal's very own Jan Tack as the lead author). Previous course topics include colorectal cancer, irritable bowel syndrome, and coeliac disease. If you haven't yet caught up with one of Bjorn's blogs then you are missing out, as well as the Case of the Month.
This year will see further progress with UEG e-learning. You will be able to enjoy all the offerings on mobile devices (take Bjorn with you on the train!). We are also soon to invite users contributions for cases and other content. UEG e-learning is your resource, so we welcome your feedback and suggestions. For those of you that haven't visited us yet, then you either know everything already, or you just haven't known where to look: www.e-learning.ueg.eu.
UEG Courses
The UEG also provides education in a less hi-tech fashion with the annual Summer School for trainees; and the Basic Science Course. The Evidence Based Medicine Course and Young Investigator Meetings run twice a year. See the UEG website for details if you are interested.
UEG Training Support
Another central element of UEG's work in education is in funding training and educational programmes, as well as assisting scientific and professional cooperation. This year a range of activities and projects have been supported with funding totalling €500 000. The application for long-term projects has been opened to all societies active in the field of gastroenterology, providing at least one UEG Member society is involved. If you are interested in applying for support then visit the website, applications for 2014 open in July 2013.
For more information visit: http://www.ueg.eu/education/