ESGENA HONORARY MEMBERS

During the Annual General Assembly in Barcelona 2010, Christine Petersen from the Netherlands was awarded with an Honorary Membership of ESGENA.

Christine worked at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam for many years, and she is still actively involved in gastroenterology and endoscopy today. She has been very active not only in the Netherlands, but also at the European and international level since the 1970s. She joined the Society of International Gastroenterology Nurses and Endoscopy Associates (SIGNEA) and established many contacts with colleagues in North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia. She also holds an honorary membership of the Dutch Society V&VN MDL (former SEVA).

Christine Petersen was one of nurses who pushed and supported the idea of a European society. Consequently she was member of the working group which prepared the foundation of ESGENA. She became the first president of ESGENA from 1996-1998. After she retired from the ESGENA board in 2002, she has been still very active within ESGENA and the European conferences. She has supported many colleagues during the last years, by using her contacts on the national and international level. Her talent is to motivate people to increase their knowledge and skills and become active on the European floor. Her enthusiasm and engagement was so important for ESGENA that the ESGENA governing board decided in 2010 to honour her with the honorary membership.

Eric Pflimlin was born in France, where he received his basic nurse training. He has been working at the University Hospital in Basel, Switzerland, since 1987 in the fields of neurosurgery, intensive care, and endoscopy. He was promoted to nurse-manager of the Endoscopy Department for Gastroenterology/Pulmonary Medicine in 1999, and also obtained several additional qualifications (e.g., in the Clinical Leadership Program at the Royal College of Nursing of London and a Certificate of Advanced Study).

In 2001, Eric Pflimlin was one of founding members of the Swiss endoscopy nurses’ society, the Schweizerische Vereinigung für Endoskopiepersonal (SVEP), and has been President of the society since then. He has also been active at the European and international level as a speaker, chair, and tutor in several countries since 2000.

He can take the credit for enabling ESGENA to offer hands-on training sessions with biosimulators at European conferences. He invested a great deal of work in the development of this project at the European level and put a tremendous amount of energy, enthusiasm, and professionalism into it. ESGENA was able to offer its first hands-on training session at the ESGENA conference held in Geneva in 2002. Two years later, this form of training was also provided by the European Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ESGE) for participants at the United European Gastroenterology Week conference.

Eric Pflimlin has been involved in organizing hands-on training facilities for ESGE–ESGENA since 2002. His department has undertaken extensive preparatory work and on-site organization every year. He has chaired all of the hands-on sessions offered since 2002 and has also inspired more and more of his colleagues to become tutors as well.

Eric’s enthusiasm and professional work have enabled ESGENA to establish a very professional method of training, and the ESGENA Governing Board therefore decided to award him honorary membership of the Society. The award was presented at the ESGENA Annual General Assembly in November 2009 in London.

Christiane was born and grew up in Germany and moved to Bristol in the United Kingdom during the 1970s. She was one of the pioneers of endoscopy nursing in the UK, working in Bristol and Birmingham. Although she has now retired from clinical work, she is still very active in university teaching, in various ethics committees, in the national colorectal cancer screening programme and in Joint Advisory Group (JAG) accreditation of endoscopy centres.

Christiane was one of the founding members of ESGENA in 1996 and held the following positions in it with professionalism, distinction and commitment: