History

HSG was founded in 1952 by a small group of pioneers gastroenterologists in Athens.

The idea of establishing HSG belonged to George Voulpiotis who also played a crucial role to its initial development. Among founding members were surgeons, radiologists and laboratory physicians showing that Gastroenterology practice in our country at that time was based on the idea of creative collaboration among clinicians of other specialties who had an active interest and involvement in diseases of the gastrointestinal tract and liver.

In the following decades, HSG significantly strengthened by the creative presence of excellent clinical tutors who trained and inspired generations of young gastroenterologists resulting in the organization of a high standard subspecialty training program. The first tentative steps of approaching the gastrointestinal tract endoscopically, followed by the rapid improvement of endoscopic techniques, have nowadays reached the level of replacing many conventional surgical procedures, differentiating the traditional role of gastroenterologist in the management of patients with acute and chronic digestive diseases. Alongside, current developments in the field of hepatology have broadened the horizons of our specialty in the direction of managing the majority of general internal medicine patients.

The role of HSG was crucial for all these developments, since through its scientific events, scholarships and research grants, helped to improve the level of Greek gastroenterologists, providing a valuable social benefit through improving the level of medical services offered to the patients with d gastrointestinal and liver diseases. The extremely rapid evolvement of scientific knowledge and its widespread diffusion in various sectors, have inevitably led to the establishment of other somewhat similar but more specialized organizations with related scientific activities in the field of Gastroenterology. However, as economic conditions in our country are changing rapidly in the last years, the challenges of the times could require a gathering of all of our country's scientific human resources in firm and pioneer organizations such as HSG.

Being proud of the way HSG contributed to the scientific developments of seven decades in our country, we call all our members to participate actively in the continuing work that begun in 1952 by a group of visionaries gastroenterologists.