The 3^rd International Workshop on Endoscopic Ultrasonography and Advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy, Seoul, Korea, March 7 – 9, 2003

”Tell me and I forget,
Show me and I remember,
Involve me and I learn.”
Benjamin Franklin

The value of live demonstration as part of endoscopic education is still being debated. Pressure for successful performance under unusual and stressful circumstances is a well known factor that often leads to failure in satisfying the high expectations of participants. Involvement of foreign experts may be associated with procedural miscommunication with the local endoscopic staff.

The 3^rd International Workshop on Endoscopic Ultrasonography and Advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy in Seoul, Korea organized by the Digestive Disease Center, Institute for Digestive Research at The Soon Chun Hyang University, however, favoured the usefulness of live demonstrations. All participants expressed the opinion that this workshop had reached the pinnacle of advanced endoscopy and was beneficial for enhancing their endoscopic skills.

The faculty included 30 local and 21 foreign experts coming from Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan and USA. All live demonstrations were successful owing to excellent case selection and preparation by the organizers. During the three days of workshop all aspects of therapeutic endoscopy and endoscopic ultrasound were successfully covered. Additional live demonstrations transmission from The Kyoto Second Red Cross Hospital added an important contribution to the success of the workshop.

Besides live demonstrations, excellent state-of-the-art lectures covering major topics in advanced endoscopy were delivered by the foreign experts which were followed by discussions with the local faculty.

We are pleased to publish this supplement on proceedings of the lectures for the benefit of the readers of ENDOSCOPY.

Nib Soehendra
Chan Sup Shim

Professor Nib Soehendra