It is an incredible honor to serve as president of the SAGES Education and Research Foundation. My first ever SAGES meeting was in 1992 at the outset of the laparoscopic revolution, and it was the most electrifying meeting I have ever attended with new techniques and procedures being developed almost weekly. SAGES has meant so much to me and my career, as I’m sure it has for you, and many of the initiatives our organization has undertaken and the evolution of minimally invasive surgery over the past 25+ years would not have been possible without critical funding from the SAGES Foundation: FLS, FES, FUSE, Safe cholecystectomy, Global surgery, OWLS, and many others.
Our History and Mission
The Foundation was formed in 1999 thanks to the vision and hard work of SAGES leaders including Greg Stiegmann, Ken Forde, Jeff Ponsky, and Barbara Berci and others who saw the need for an organization separate from SAGES in which the strategy was long-term. Years before conflict of interest regulations began to impact industry-surgical society relationships, they recognized the importance of building a corpus of funds, jump started by industry contributions, that would fund projects to support education and research in GI and endoscopic surgery and patient care. The Foundation has been ably led over the last 25 years by SERF Presidents Greg Stiegmann, Rick Greene, Bruce Schirmer, Desmond Birkett, and, most recently, Stephen Unger.
The Foundation mission statement was revised last year to better reflect our current goals: To support surgical education, training, research and projects or initiatives in the areas of gastrointestinal and endoscopic surgery and related science and technology to improve clinical practice, improve patient safety and/or further the field of general minimally invasive surgery.
The Foundation is a big part of the success of SAGES and, in addition, to the above programs, has funded the Career Development Award, the Brandeis award, the Barbara Berci fund to support and develop young SAGES leaders, and numerous research grants and other projects.
Your Impact as a SAGES member
Your gift in contribution to the Foundation is more important today than ever. SAGES matches dollar for dollar every member donation to the Foundation annually. Grants given to SAGES from the Foundation are based on a percentage of the Foundation corpus; to increase our support back to SAGES initiatives, we need your help. No gift is too small; the important thing is to become a donor – at any level. My charge to you is to make the Foundation a top priority for your charitable giving every year. You can do so with an unrestricted gift or by earmarking one of six different Giving Plus categories listed below. This year, the Foundation will award $685,000 in grants to SAGES programs. Over the last 5 years the Foundation has supported more than $3,200,000 of SAGES projects and increased annual support by 40% during that time! With your help, we can do more in the coming years.
Finally, I want to especially acknowledge the long standing and remarkable service and leadership of Dr. Stephen Unger who has served on the Foundation board almost since its inception and has held many leadership roles in addition to President. Among his initiatives as Foundation President, Dr. Unger led an effort to diversify the Foundation Board with appointments of 10 new board members who represent the spectrum of our society and leadership. He also brought forward the Giving Plus initiative in which SAGES members can contribute to one of a number of specific areas of interest that include education/training, innovation/research, leadership development, global programs, sustainability, and advocacy. Thank you, Dr. Unger for your leadership and vision that inspires us all!
Sincerely,
Michael Brunt, MD
President, SAGES Education and Research Foundation
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