Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to From Top to Bottom, the new podcast from the British Society of Gastroenterology, which we hope will become one of your go to gastroenterology podcasts. My name is Roisin Bevan. I'm the Chair of the BSG Education Committee, currently training Programme Director for the Northern Deanery and the District General Gastroenterologist and General Medic in Teesside in the north of England.
We at the BSG recognise that people's time is increasingly pressured in the current NHS climate and that there's always a paper you should have read or a new guideline that you need to look at. And we want to try and help you potentially kill two birds with one stone. With a new offering of podcasts, one of the BSG strengths is our guidelines, which often guide much gastroenterology practice in the uk. This podcast series going forward will take recent and upcoming guidelines, position statements and guidance and break them down into bite sized chunks that could be listened to during your commute and in a journal club or whilst on your run, if you're so inclined.
For this first cast, we'd like to take more of an overview of the BSG as it stands in 2025, coming up to nearly 90 years old.
I'd therefore like to welcome the BSG president, Professor Colin Rees. Colin is a Professor of Gastroenterology at Newcastle University and works as a gastroenterologist in a District General Hospital in South Tyneside. Welcome, Colin.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Thank you, Roisin. It's a pleasure to be here for the first of the Top to Bottom podcasts.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: So, Colin, can you tell us what the BSG is all about?
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yes. So the BSG is really all about supporting our members and delivering the best possible gastroenterology and hepatology care to our patients. And we do this through quite a wide range of means and I'm just going to take you through a few of those. So, firstly, you've mentioned guidelines. I think guidelines are one of our most important roles. They inform practice and help people deliver better care. We do this alongside our cssc, which is where we really try to support people clinically. So that is all about helping people deliver ideal care in their own clinical setting. We also deliver a wide educational program. I'm sure many will be very familiar with the annual BSG Live meeting.
That's obviously our flagship event, but we have a wide range of other educational meetings that we support in person and online. And I'm really excited that next year, in 2020, BSG Endoscopy Live will be coming back that's from the 26th to the 27th of January and will be held in Leeds.
We also are really involved in training in developing the next generation of gastroenterologists.
And we do this through our training committee and through our trainees committee. And we essentially help support training programs, we help with the curriculum and we work with other stakeholders to try and make training the best it can possibly.
We're also developing really strong international links. We have an international committee and some of our key partnerships at the minute are with China and with India, and we have a really good relationship developing with those countries. But we work with a number of countries and we have a number of grants that support opportunities internationally.
The last real main area of the BSG is our research committee, and this is to promote and encourage research in the GI and hepatology space. And we have a wide range of grants for scholars that we support through the research committee.
And on top of those sort of overarching areas, we have a range of sections, and these sections are clinically based, so the IBD section, the endoscopy section, the hepatology section, and these are really to support practical areas of GI and hepatology practice.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Great. So it kind of covers a real wide range of stuff and there's something for everybody in the bsg. And one of the things is that the BSG has been around for a long time and obviously over the many years it's been in place, it's changed from being a very small society up to now several thousand members.
Have things changed over the 90 years that it's been in place?
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So, as you say, the BSG started as a bit of a club and like many medical organizations, did continue like that for a while, but really has evolved now into a modern, dynamic, diverse organization. We have over four and a half thousand members now. We regularly have well over 2,000 last year, approaching 3,000 people attending our BSG live meeting. And we have a thriving organisation that I think really reflects the gastroenterology workforce in terms of its diversity and range of types of clinical areas that people work in. So I think we have a really dynamic, modern organisation.
Of course, we can always do better. And one thing we're really keen to do is interact much more with our members. And I hope that these podcasts will help us. We're always keen to hear ideas from our members about what they want from the bsg, about what we can do better. So please get in touch with us and tell us if you have ideas as to what the BSG can do for you to help support you in your practice more.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: Great. And you kind of touched there on getting different people involved. And I think one thing that we're really keen to work on is expanding the range of people that get involved. So it might be useful to talk about how you and I both ended up involved in BSG projects and signpost people to how they can get more involved. So for example, for me, I started on. You mentioned the CSSC committee before, it's the Clinical Services and Standards committee. And I started on that when I was quite an early years consultant to be the regional representative. So each region is represented at that committee and when the existing person decided to step down from that, it was suggested that I applied to it. And it seemed like something that seemed a bit above where I was at at that point in time. But actually it was a great opportunity to see how the committees worked, see how the structure of the BSG worked and to kind of become more familiar with the processes of a society. And it's very different to the way clinical medicine works, but is actually a really interesting aside to having that kind of clinical work. But there's lots of different ways to get onto the various different committees. I don't know if you wanted to sort of identify how you got to where you are and how people can apply to be on those different groups.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree with you completely, Roisin, that there are lots of ways to get involved with the bsg. And a myth I'd like to dispel early on here is this myth of imposter syndrome. I think we all have imposter syndrome, so don't be put off by that. You know, I worked for many years as a district general gastroenterologist and really got to that sort of stage of having been a consultant for a number of years where I wanted a bit of a new challenge. And that came along with the bowel cancer screening program and I started getting involved in research at that point. The only reason I then moved to a university post was it just worked better for our organization. So I absolutely don't come as some academic. I'm a DGH gastroenterologist who works in the real world with real patients and that's how I got involved in the bsg. So as I did more research, I got involved in the BSG endoscopy research group, found my way onto the endoscopy committee and then I applied to be the chair of the endoscopy committee. I did that for a couple of years and then I didn't really have as much involvement with the BSG for a bit. And then the opportunity for president was advertised. And I've always loved working with the bsg. I think we have a brilliant team. I think we have a really collaborative, cohesive approach to how we do things. I think we have a great team in the office in the bsg. And I decided to apply to be president. I don't think I have wonderful gifts for that. I just, I enjoy the work. I enjoy working with the bsg. So I would encourage anybody who's interested to get involved with the bsg. You can do this through signing up for one of the sections. I would encourage you to stand to go on to those section committees. We often have unfilled posts on those, so you're likely to get on one of those if you apply. Some are more popular than others, like the endoscopy committee. But if you don't get on the first time, keep applying, get involved in the clinical research groups or stand as an elected counsellor. There's lots of different ways. But if you want to know how to get involved, I would be very happy if you wanted to drop me an email.
You just email it to PresidentSG. It's on the website. And we'd be very happy to give you some advice about how to get involved.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Definitely. And I think another thing to say is people are already involved in the bsg, is promoting it to your colleagues and kind of pushing people forward.
I mean, I think it's not really a declaration or conflict of interest, but I was your research fellow back when you were kind of like you say, in this more earlier stages of developing the stuff that now is, you know, the majority of your job. And I think through that I was exposed to lots of different things at the BSG and kind of given an idea of how things work outside of straightforward clinical medicine. And I think being kind of really encouraged and kind of, you know, championed a bit to go forward for things is really helpful. So I think for people that are already on BSG committees or already involved, actually bring along your other. Your other colleagues, bring along your kind of the consultants that are earlier in their post because it can often feel a bit overwhelming. And you're right, that imposter syndrome that you mentioned I think is really classic for people when they think about applying for things. But actually, you know, what you want is people on the ground giving an idea of what real life gastroenterology is like. So the BSG can kind of function and focus on those people as well. So I think, you know, I think you're right. I think getting people involved and, you know, just go for these. These positions and that there's. There's lots of stuff for everybody to be involved in. You mentioned about coming to the BSG live and some of our event. So through the Education Committee, we've got quite a wide range of events that run. So the BSG runs about sort of six to ten events themselves each year. There's the management weekend for trainees, there's an IBD focus meeting. There's lots of different sort of section meetings that run throughout the year, as well as the BSG Live and the endoscopy live event you've talked about.
And there's also lots of endorsed events. So if you're running an event or you're looking for an event to go to, you've got an area of something that needs topping up. With cpd, we've got lots of events that are endorsed by the bsg, so they meet certain criteria. Criteria and definite standards. So, you know, you're picking a good event to go to. And for the BSG Live event, we have lots of bursaries that we. That we administer through the Education Committee.
We've got multiple, sort of 20 to 40, depending on which bit you're looking at. But we've got bursaries for students, for trainees and for nurses, and we're really keen to promote those and get people coming to things. So I think, particularly a lot of nursing colleagues feel that they need to have something presented at the bsg, but you don't. For a nursing bursary, you can just come along and see how it works. We'd be very keen then, to encourage you to start working on a project and get you a mentor through the BSG that could do that. But there's lots of ways to get involved that helps with the money around going to these conferences. And for trainees and for allied health professionals, the membership rates and the rates for the conferences are actually massively reduced in order to encourage people coming in, because this is the future of the Society and of gastroenterology going forward.
So I think that's really important as well.
[00:11:32] Speaker B: I 100% agree. I think there's lots of opportunities. We really want more people involved.
We have an excellent trainee committee, which is chaired at the moment by Risha Gwenta. So that's a really good way to get involved. Through the trainees join the trainee section, we would encourage people to become members. There's a lot of benefits of being A member, many of which I've just talked about, access to educational resources, access to meetings, access to guidelines, etc.
Nurses. I think we are really working on how we can get more nurses involved. And I think at the minute we have a lot of the more specialized nurses involved. But something we'll come on to talk about is how we can get more of the endoscopy nurses, not nursed endoscopists and ward GI nurses involved. I just want to come back to one thing again about this imposter syndrome. You know, the last, the previous, myself and the next president of the BSG are all district general gastroenterologists. You know, this is not an ivory tower organization.
This is open to everybody and everybody can be involved. So I would really encourage people to engage with us. And I really, really enjoy my journey with the bsg and I think other people will do too. Almost everybody that has a role. We have exit interviews when people step down from posts at the BSG and everybody says how much they have enjoyed their post, how rewarding it has been, how enriching it's been for them. So I think that getting involved in an organization like the BSG is a really good way to enrich your career.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Definitely. And I think on that imposter syndrome thing, I think you can't see yourself in a role if you don't see somebody else doing it. Which I think is one of the things that I've found really helpful to see some of the kind of the personalities and the people that have gone through beforehand and that hopefully people might look at the things that I've done and then the things that people I know that have done and have gone through and can say, okay, I could see myself doing that. That's somebody that like you say, works in a district general hospital. It's been through kind of standard training and is just, you know, managing to do both things and actually develop things really well. So I think you're right. I think just get, come and get involved and come and have a chat with us at the BSG live review. There. There's a BSG stand. It's usually somewhere near the main entrance. It's usually got good freebies. Come and come and have a chat and see how you can get involved.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yeah. 100. You know, this is for everybody.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: And one thing that's coming up is the big anniversary of the, of the BSG and I know you're working on something called Project 90. Do you want to talk a little bit about what, what that's going to be for people going forward?
[00:14:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So BSG was founded in 1937, so we will be 90 years old in 2027. And really, to align with that, we thought, how can we invest and encourage our members? I think it's very clear that medicine's gone through a difficult time. I'm talking medicine in its broader sense, medicine and nursing and ahp, that has gone through a difficult time. We had the pandemic, we had industrial unrest. And I think that a lot of people working in medicine found, you know, have lost a little bit of their enthusiasm. I think that is coming back. But actually, Project 90 is about trying to reinvigorate our workforce and really support them. So we have five areas of Project 90.
The first is traveling fellowships. So this is an opportunity for people to go and visit other units and get inspired by them. I would say some of the most inspirational times in my career have been when I've gone to visit other places, seen what they do and come back full of enthusiasm for doing similar things in my own unit. So I would encourage people to apply for those. Again, these are not for people from ivory towers. You know, if you're working in a large academic institution, you probably have these opportunities already. So we want all sorts of people to apply for these, people that would not normally have these opportunities. So look out for these. These are starting in 2025 and we'll be rolling through the next few years. So that's the first ever traveling fellowships.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: And on those. Colin, can anybody apply for those?
[00:15:36] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yep, absolutely. Doctors, nurses, anybody can apply for those. So please apply. The second area is nurse education that we are developing a nurse educational program. And this is really very much aimed at that group I talked about before, the enthusiastic endoscopy nurses, the enthusiastic ward nurses, the. That want to increase their knowledge, want to broaden their skills within gastroenterology. So we're developing this at the moment and we have a writing group together and we will be talking more about this at BSG Live in June and there should be something very active about this come the autumn, so look out for that. That's a really encouraging nurses educational programme.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: And I think that's another thing that's going to be supported, isn't it? So there's going to be lots of. It's going to be funded for the nurses so that they aren't to pay for this out of pocket. It's. The idea is that these are the nurse endospers, the IVD nurses, the specialist nurses of the future. And it's a way of, you know, so everybody works with these nurses on their wards and you'll know people who've stated an interest or are really kind of keen to take things forward. So definitely signpost them to it when it comes out.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm really excited about this program.
The third thing that we want to do through Project 90 is take the BSG out to our members much more. We obviously have BSG live and we have a number of other meetings, but we have got clubs throughout the country, but they function quite variably. So actually what we want to do is go around the country or the countries and take the BSG then. So we already have meetings lined up in Scotland, in Northern Ireland, in Wales, and we have some organized in some of the regions of England as well. So this is the idea that there will be a day or maybe two day meeting where the BSG will work with the local regions to provide content. We're actually going to take some of the endo village that we hold at the BSG live on the road.
That will happen in some places, if we can make it happen.
So I think that's a really exciting opportunity for people to engage with the BSG more locally.
The fourth area, there's five areas of Project 90 is around leadership and management.
And we are going to be running a leadership and management course for our members again that will be advertised sometime very soon because it's going to start in the autumn of 2025. There will be a couple of residential spells staying in a hotel where people can learn management leadership skills and then it will be followed up with virtual meetings.
So look out for that and I think that's a really good opportunity. The last area of Project 90 is around career support. I mentioned before my career that I think people do get to a point in their career where they need to do something a bit different, where they've done the same thing for a period of time and they need to, you know, there's a lot of different areas. You can get into management, you can get into education, you can get into research, you can get into training. There's a whole load of different areas. Or you can become super specialized obviously as well, that this is about trying to say these are the sort of opportunities, these are the kind of routes you can take. So again, look out for that because that will be launching later on this year.
So Project 90 is that range of areas and we're investing quite a lot of money in that. We're going to be working with industry as well and it's really for everybody. And again, I say this, this is for you. If you think, how would I like to encourage or improve my career in gastroenterology or hepatology, then look out for Project 90 because there'll be something there for you, great.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: I mean, I think you're totally right. I think we're an awfully long time in the job and like you say, the last few years, I think have been pretty tough on everybody for, for all the reasons you'd mentioned before. And doing something outside of the normal daily grind can be really great for bringing ideas back or just giving you a break from what you've been doing and exploring other areas. And I think you're much more likely to stay positive and enjoying your job if you've got other bits of it. It sometimes can feel a bit overwhelming, I think that you're taking on something extra and a lot of people I think, think, where am I going to put something extra in? But it probably then gives you a pathway to be able to change the way you work. And I think that can be really empowering for people. And I think that's something that this project really looks like it's going to take forward for people.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that often it can feel a bit like you're stuck in a rut and actually learning ways to do things better or getting more enthused about them is really important. But I agree, doing other things, every other job that I've taken on, you have to stop and think, have I got time for this? But actually it's always enhanced the day job for me.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Thank you so much for joining us, Colin. I think that's been really great to have an overview of where things are at with the BSG and if people have not really known what the BSG can give them. I think this gives quite a good outline of the multitude of things that you can do through the BSG in terms of this podcast going forward. Keep an eye out for future podcast editions because we're going to start rolling these out in about September. We've currently got plans in place and recordings starting for podcasts on the IBD surveillance guidelines, the sedation guidelines, consent guidelines and endoscopy. We've got some guidance about genomics and a project that's been worked on there there. We've also got a new guideline on the conservative management of polyps in older people and how you make those decisions. And obviously the big guideline coming out this year is the new IBD guidelines that are currently being processed and ready for publication. And as soon as those are ready, we aim to have probably a series of podcasts breaking it down into several different sections so you can focus on the bit that affects the work you're doing and means you don't have to read the several hundred pages of excellent document. But that will often seem a bit overwhelming.
So keep an eye out for those. They'll be freely available to you via all the usual places you can access podcasts from, and you don't need to be a BSG member to access them. So tell everybody about them and keep an eye out for them in the future. Thanks very much.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: Thank you.
