Dear Colleagues-
I hope this letter finds you all well. I wanted to provide you all with a brief update and several reminders for upcoming OGS events.
New OGS position created to better engage trainee members and increase OGS social media presence
There was an overwhelming consensus within the OGS board that we needed to better engage not only our existing members, but also our GI fellow/trainee members in Ohio. We realize that we need to better promote involvement and collaboration of our existing and trainee members, as well as provide these members with increased networking/mentoring opportunities within OGS. As a separate but related objective, we set out to find ways to better utilize our social media presence in hopes of increasing interactions and better involvement of our OGS members. With these two objectives in mind, we have established a new position to serve and assist the OGS board in these objectives. This position will be called the “OGS head fellow/trainee liaison”.
I am happy to announce that we have selected Bianca Islam MD, PhD, MSc, to serve as our inaugural OGS head fellow/trainee liaison. Dr. Islam is a second year GI fellow in the CWRU/ University Hospitals GI and Hepatology fellowship program in Cleveland. Dr. Islam has already spearheaded similar social media engagement efforts in her fellowship program, so we are ecstatic that she has graciously accepted our offer to serve OGS. Dr. Islam will be beginning this role officially at our annual meeting in September. Thank you Dr. Islam! I am excited to see how this new position positively impacts our engagement with our members in the years to come.
New Twitter Handle for OGS!
In an effort to begin to increase our social media presence, we have implemented a new Twitter handle for OGS. Our Twitter handle is @OHgastrosociety. We would invite all of our members to follow us on Twitter so we can better communicate and interact with you all. We plan to utilize this and other social media platforms more regularly beginning later this year. We hope that distribution of information will be more streamlined to our membership using these channels.
Happy Hour/ Welcome Reception on Friday, September 8th, 6-7pm at OGS Annual meeting
For those OGS members planning to attend our meeting on Saturday September 9th, we invite you all to join us on Friday evening September 8th from 6-7 pm for a Happy Hour/Welcome reception. We hope to see many of you there! This will be a casual get together that we hope provides an opportunity for some of our existing and trainee members to interact and network with each other. This will be held at the Renaissance Hotel Westerville-Polaris. Get the Annual Meeting details here >
Honoring loyalty, excellence, and service to OGS:
A proposed OGS Fellowship (OGSF) designation for members to be voted on at OGS Annual Meeting
Fellowship in the Ohio Gastroenterology Society (OGSF) is a newly proposed honorary designation to acknowledge select members of OGS who have shown exceptional dedication, service and leadership in advancing the interests of their patients, gastroenterologists, and the members of OGS throughout the state of Ohio. The OGSF designation will reward these achievements and highlight the individual’s dedication to OGS. In order to qualify for this designation, the applicant:
Must be an OGS member in good standing, having maintained an active OGS membership for a minimum period of 5 years, including at least 3 years of continuous membership.
Must be an OGS member who has been in clinical practice for at least 5 years since completion of gastroenterology fellowship.
Must submit a completed application form documenting their involvement and participation in OGS activities. These should include a minimum of two of the following:
Documented and verified attendance at a minimum of three (3) OGS sponsored events accredited for continuing medical education (CME) over a 6 year time frame.
Attended the OGS annual meeting at least five (5) times.
Organized, lectured at, or moderated a session at the annual OGS CME event or other OGS sponsored event.
Served as a past or current member of the OGS Governing board for at least a two year term.
Served as a prior OGS president.
Served as an inaugural member of OGS governing board.
Demonstrated additional professional leadership as demonstrated by holding a position on a state or national GI society committee (ASGE, ACG, DHPA, AGA, OSMA, etc).
We plan to vote on implementing this designation at our annual meeting in September. Further information regarding this voting process will be forthcoming. If successfully approved the OGS fellowship designation would likely be implemented in 2024 and details of the application process would be forthcoming at that time.
I hope to see you all on September 8-9th at the annual OGS meeting in Columbus!
The link to renew your membership is: https://www.ohiogisociety.org/membership.
Respectfully,
Terry O’Toole, D.O
President
To verify membership status: Call 614-527-6728 or email Denise Kieffer at dkieffer@osma.org.
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