In a joint clinical session at Digestive Disease Week 2026 in Chicago, the Saudi Gastroenterology Association presented its national approach to scaling clinical care and endoscopy training across every region of the Kingdom, alongside ASGE colleagues.
Session signage for W187 BC at DDW 2026, Chicago — 4 May 2026.
Digestive Disease Week (DDW) — the largest annual gathering in gastroenterology, hepatology and endoscopy — included a joint clinical session co-convened by the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Saudi Gastroenterology Association (SGA) in its 2026 programme. Held in room W187 BC of McCormick Place on Monday, 4 May 2026 at 10:00 AM, the 90-minute session was titled "No Center Left Behind: Scaling Clinical Care and Training in Endoscopy on a National Level."
The session tackled one of the field’s most persistent equity questions: how does a country guarantee that every endoscopy unit — whether in a tertiary academic centre in the capital or a regional unit several hundred kilometres away — delivers the same quality of care, the same training pipeline, and the same patient outcomes? SGA framed the answer through a four-pillar national approach covering competency-based training, quality registries, regional faculty development, and a tele-mentoring backbone that links smaller centres to anchor academic units.
“The barrier in most countries isn’t the technology — it’s the training architecture and the data feedback loop. We are working to solve for both at once, and to make sure no centre in the Kingdom is left behind.”
Representing the Saudi Gastroenterology Association on the panel were Dr Abdullah Alshahrani, Dr Aymen Almuhaidb, Dr Ahmad Najdat Bazarbashi, and Dr Bader Alajlan, joined by Dr A. Aziz Aadam and Dr Steven Edmundowicz representing ASGE. Dr Edmundowicz — a world-renowned advanced endoscopist and a past president of ASGE — is widely recognised for his leadership in therapeutic endoscopy, innovation, and physician training, and his presence on the panel underscored the depth of the partnership between the two societies. The panel paired SGA case studies — the expansion of advanced endoscopy training across multiple regions of the Kingdom — with ASGE competency frameworks, mapping how each could be adapted to mid-sized national health systems globally.
Vision 2030 sat clearly in the background of the discussion. The SGA delegation described how the national plan to centralise advanced procedures while expanding diagnostic capacity at regional and primary-care endoscopy units has accelerated the need for a structured, country-wide curriculum. Speaking on behalf of the Society, Dr Aymen Almuhaidb framed the philosophy behind the model: "The barrier in most countries isn’t the technology — it’s the training architecture and the data feedback loop. We are working to solve for both at once, and to make sure no centre in the Kingdom is left behind."
The Q&A segment was lively, with questions from international delegates focused on the practicalities of credentialing in mixed-volume centres, financing a regional faculty network, and integrating quality indicators into electronic health records at the national level. The session closed under DDW 2026’s "Discovery at Every Turn" banner, with both societies signalling intent to continue the partnership at the SDDF 2026 Saudi Digestive Disease Forum later this year.
For the SGA, the DDW joint session represents another step in placing a Saudi-led model of national-scale endoscopy training alongside the field’s most established programmes, and reinforces the Society’s strategic priority — set out in its 2025–2027 plan — of becoming a regional reference for delivering high-quality endoscopy outside of a small number of mega-centres.
