AGA offers a number of sessions to meet the unique needs of DDW^® attendees in the early stages of their careers in gastrointestinal medicine.

“DDW is one of the largest meetings for gastroenterologists and other digestive disease specialists in the world. It’s a tremendous opportunity for trainee and early career members to learn about not only the current standards of practice, but also ongoing research, future technologies and future approaches to digestive disease management,” said Avinash G. Ketwaroo, MD, chair of the AGA Trainee and Early Career Committee.

Sessions for trainees and early career physicians are scheduled throughout the DDW meeting, beginning Saturday with the first day of the annual AGA Postgraduate Course. Sessions for the ticketed course run all day Saturday and a half-day Sunday.

“The AGA Postgraduate Course is a tremendous offering at DDW, covering current standards of care and highlighting new approaches and new technologies for common GI diseases,” said Dr. Ketwaroo, assistant professor of medicine-gastroenterology at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX. “It’s a great opportunity for trainees and early career members who are about to take their board exams by providing a refresher on material that will be needed for the boards and invaluable insight into the current practice of gastroenterology.”

While the postgraduate course requires advance registration and a separate fee, other trainee/early career sessions are included with the standard DDW registration.

Among the “must attend” sessions Dr. Ketwaroo recommends is Monday’s Introduction to GI Practice: A Trainee Boot Camp. “For anyone who is interested in or planning to go into private practice, this will be an invaluable chance to hear from successful private practitioners in the field about the key aspects of the business of GI,” he said.

Another Monday session that Dr. Ketwaroo recommends is GI in the Digital Age, which will provide a comprehensive review on the use of social media to build a personal brand and to interact with colleagues and patients.

“For many, particularly our younger colleagues, social media is a major part of their daily personal lives. However, some may not be aware of the increasingly important role that social media can play in our professional lives,” Dr. Ketwaroo said. “This session will take a look at the issues we all face in the era of Twitter and Facebook, including some of the pitfalls that can be expected, for example, when patients are reviewing or ranking providers in the digital age.”

Dr. Ketwaroo also encourages trainees and early career GIs to participate in face-to-face networking opportunities, such as Sunday afternoon’s AGA Trainee & Early Career Networking Hour, sponsored by the AGA Trainee and Early Career Committee and taking place in the Trainee and Early Career Lounge in the Sails Pavilion.

“DDW is a phenomenal networking event, with opportunities to not only network with your peers, other fellows and early career colleagues, but also with the some of the giants and leaders in our field from all over the world,” he said. “There really is no other place where you can walk out of a meeting room where you met the person who discovered the genetic underpinnings of Lynch syndrome, for example, and then head to another room where you might meet someone who is working on the latest technologies in discovering the impact of the microbiome in gastrointestinal diseases.”

Two other sessions, both on Monday, that Dr. Ketwaroo recommends for trainees and early career GIs are AGA Board Review Course and Advancing Clinical Practice: GI Fellow-Directed Quality-Improvement Projects.

The board review course is designed around content from the newly released DDSEP^® 9 and serves as a primer for third-year fellows preparing for the board exam, and also as a review course for those wanting to test their knowledge. The quality improvement session is trainee-focused and will showcase select abstracts from GI fellows and will also feature a state-of-the-art lecture. Attendees will learn about practical examples of successful quality improvement projects for integration into their day-to-day work lives.

Please refer to the DDW Mobile App or the Program & Exhibits sections in the Saturday, Sunday and Monday issues for the times and locations of these and other DDW events.