Goedele Dewitte, Ghent, Belgium
“Each year during the ECCO Congress I have looked at the amazing group of nurses and always been impressed by what they mean to the ECCO Community.
“I wanted to become an N-ECCO Committee Member because I am curious. Curious to see how ECCO works, curious about what N-ECCO offers all those IBD Nurses, but also enthusiastic and eager to learn from this amazing group of professionals.
“Ever since I became an IBD Nurse, I have seen the need for broader work: a local MDT team, also beyond the boundaries of my own institution. Within our institution and in our national IBD Nurse association, we follow the ECCO Guidelines and base our work on the N-ECCO Consensus Statements.
“We have a common goal—the well-being of the IBD patient—but we (nurses) work in a different way to achieve that goal. I’ve noticed that the IBD Nurses in N-ECCO are a heterogeneous group: we all work in different health care systems and have different laws. So being on the committee will provide me with a deeper insight into how all these different systems connect and how they align everything in a way that is clear but can still be adapted to the individual context.
“As a committee member I will obtain more insights into the development of research, for example by joining the working groups for the update on the N-ECCO Consensus. It will be possible to propose topics for forthcoming congresses, be a chair or moderator during events and learn to evaluate and score presentations in the poster sessions.
“And being on the committee gives you even more connections throughout Europe 😊.”
Pearl Avery, Weymouth, United Kingdom
“I qualified as a nurse in 2005, and I was grateful to have achieved this; helping patients feel better in small but profound ways was enough. As time passed, I realised there was more to being a nurse, and I developed professionally as an advocate and eventually an activist for patients in my care. In 2013, after working in gastroenterology and colorectal nursing, I became an IBD Nurse, which was my turning point. This hidden condition, which causes profound symptoms and affects quality of life yet is poorly understood by many people, became a passion, and advocating for better services, an obsession. I was encouraged to share the service developments we implemented as a team at the hospital where I worked. We submitted abstracts to ECCO, and I attended my first congress in 2016.
“ECCO’s global mission aligns with my values; however, I had often felt like a novice, unsure if I had enough experience to support IBD Nurses internationally, and so I did not apply to N-ECCO immediately. Over the last three years, I’ve developed skills and become active in UK professional organisations, helping nurses and IBD patients. I’ve been a Crohn’s & Colitis UK nurse specialist since 2019 and have been elected as a Nurse member of the British Society of Gastroenterology IBD clinical research group and a member of the Royal College of Nursing Gastrointestinal forum steering committee.
“I am also fortunate to know the first IBD Nurse, Sheila Phillips, who lives in the same town as I do. Her seminal work, published in 1995 [1], outlining the first IBD advice line and nurse-led care, was born in a district general hospital in Dorset, England. Had she not shared her experience nationally with other nurses, IBD nursing might look very different today. I have spent some time with Sheila, and her enthusiasm for IBD care remains. She inspired me to continue this tradition of supporting and developing others. Now, I feel ready to contribute to the international IBD Community. Linking my experiences to support global IBD initiatives feels like a responsibility I must embrace.
“Through my work on the N-ECCO Committee, I look forward to empowering nurses to help patients with IBD worldwide achieve better outcomes and quality of life.”
Learn more about N-ECCO Educational and Networking Activities here: https://www.ecco-ibd.eu/about-ecco/ecco-operational-board/n-ecco.html
The next Nurses National Representatives meeting takes place in Berlin on October 4, 2025.
