Christian Maaser © ECCO

While the ECCO Basic Imaging Workshop in collaboration with ESGAR had to be postponed until next year’s ECCO Congress due to the need to change to a virtual format at rather short notice, the 9th ECCO Ultrasound Workshop – Advanced in collaboration with ESGAR did take place and proved a big success, bringing together 114 colleagues from 34 countries, including not just European countries but also, for example, the United States, Uruguay, Singapore, Japan, Korea, India and Australia.

Kostas Karmiris © ECCO

The 20^th ECCO IBD Intensive Course for Trainees was held virtually on February 16, 2022 as part of ECCO’s educational programme. This is ECCO’s oldest and most established course. This year, a total of 115 participants from 34 countries from Europe and elsewhere attended the course and were offered a comprehensive update on IBD. The course focused on pivotal insights into the medical management of IBD patients in an interactive manner.

The second edition of the ECCO Postgraduate Course in IBD took place on February 17, 2022, on a virtual platform. The morning session reviewed patient management and treatment strategies, with contributions from numerous well-known speakers of ECCO, including the current and past presidents. 

Tim Raine  © ECCO

At the ECCO Congress 2022, Yves Panis and I had the great pleasure to present the new ECCO Guidelines on Therapeutics in Ulcerative Colitis. This work has been published as two papers in JCC: one dealing with the medical aspects of UC management, and one dealing with surgical strategies and the management of patients with acute severe UC. The guidelines were produced by a team of 33 clinicians and six patients, drawn from a total of 23 countries and supported by a group of professional methodologists, a librarian and, of course, the staff of the ECCO Office, including the indomitable Dauren Ramankulov. Yves and I were joined by Glen Doherty and Antonino Spinelli as co-ordinators of this large effort.

Wladzia Czuber-Dochan © ECCO

The N-ECCO Chair, Susanna Jäghult, opened the 16^th N-ECCO Network Meeting by welcoming 171 nurses from around the world. This was the second virtual Congress due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The N-ECCO Research Forum takes place every other year and this year’s programme was designed to help nurses and other health-aligned professionals to better understand the different aspects of the research process.

Wladyslawa Czuber-Dochan opened the meeting and announced that the winner of the N-ECCO Research Grant for 2022 was Rosanna Comoretto from Torino, Italy.

Miriam Ganon © ECCO

The N-ECCO School ran for the first time in 2010. The aim of the School is to enhance the knowledge and expertise of nurses and dietitians who are new to IBD, enabling them to provide better quality care to IBD patients throughout Europe and beyond. In addition, the N-ECCO School has become a great networking opportunity for both nurses and dietitians, allowing them to share their experiences and plans for furthering their careers and demonstrating the importance of the MDT approach to IBD care.

Ana Ibarra  © ECCO

On the evening of Wednesday, February 16, nurses from several countries across Europe participated in our yearly N-ECCO National Representatives Meeting.

As N-ECCO Committee Member responsible for the National Representatives, I welcomed the attendees. An exchange of nurses every 2–3 years is greatly encouraged by N-ECCO, but many countries nevertheless retain the same National Representatives for more than 3 years. New people tend to mean new ideas, although some countries have different service setups and getting new representatives is sometimes difficult.

Lihi Godny  © ECCO

As a part of the 17th ECCO Congress, the 7th D-ECCO (Dietitians of ECCO) Workshop was conducted virtually and included three sessions: (1) Science, moving from a causality in IBD; (2) Practicalities and pitfalls of dietary therapy in IBD; (3) MDT: More than just the MD? Case presentations and panel discussion.

Christianne Buskens © ECCO

In contrast to what we had hoped, the 11^th S-ECCO Masterclass was again a virtual event due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, as everyone has slowly got used to online conferences, it almost felt intimate to meet like this once more.