Dear friends and colleagues,
In the past two years, the BIRD Congress has been an overwhelming success. With this, the 2-day BIRD congress becomes a landmark event in the gastroenterology space in Belgium. This year again, during the third weekend of November, all health care professionals (HCPs) interested in the care for patients with IBD will gather in Brussels for an exciting learning and networking experience. After the past editions in Ostend and Bruges, we expanded the scope of the congress even more. We would like to engage not only physicians and nurses, but enriched the program even more to accommodate clinical trialists, dietitians, psychologists and researchers with different levels of experience.
In a changing IBD world, the key to success is high level education, collaboration, and networking. BIRD has achieved some important milestones during the last year. We completed the patient recruitment of two BIRD-sponsor investigator initiated trials, while the BIRD registry is continuously growing with now more than 2800 Belgian patients included. New initiatives are on the shelf, with an IBUS endorsed intestinal ultrasound workshop and clinical trials that have started in 2024. All this reflects the collaborative spirit within BIRD. The future looks bright for BIRD!
For our BIRD 2024 Third Annual Congress, we have chosen the Mix in the south of Brussels as our venue. This brand-new top congress venue will be the hotspot for IBD learning.
After the success of last year, we have expanded our educational training program. On Friday morning, we organize a crash course in good clinical practice (GCP) to familiarise you with the key concepts in conducting clinical studies. Participation in this course will provide you with the certificate required to participate in future clinical studies. So, get certified! Later in the morning, we have 3 parallel educational trainings. All trainings are open for any type of HCP. We will dissect the concept of head-to-head trials with the Sequence trial as the example. In another educational training, we will focus on the reimbursements of advanced medications and how this impact on the IBD care pathway and monitoring plan in practice. The last training will bring an introduction to IBD for those that entered the IBD field more recently.
For the third BIRD Congress, we will keep the 2-day formula with national and international key opinion leaders. On Friday afternoon, we will discuss hot topics in IBD care. In this edition, we will focus on everyday practices, and how we can improve them on a daily basis in our IBD clinics. Afterwards, we will dive deeper in what the future will bring and how this impacts on our current practice already. Saturday morning will energize you with various interactive workshops on fatigue, motivational speaking or the future of IBD care organisation. By default, our BIRD Congress will be concluded with a session dedicated to the best of the major international congresses after the past year. If you were not able to attend ECCO, DDW or UEGW in 2024, the BIRD Congress will provide you with a summary of the most important studies presented earlier this year.
Finally, after the success of the previous editions, we will again organize a fantastic conference dinner on Friday evening, 7pm at the Mix, where all participants can get to know each other while enjoying the vibrating atmosphere of Brussels. Do not miss this opportunity!
We sincerely hope to see you all at the third annual BIRD Congress!