About ACG

• Mission
• ACG President
• Board of Trustees
• ACG Past Presidents
• Past Chairs ACG Board of Governors
• ACG Headquarters
• 75th Anniversary Book
• ACG Website Privacy Policy

More than 12,000 physicians from 82 countries are members of the ACG. Through annual scientific meetings, The American Journal of Gastroenterology, regional postgraduate training courses and research grants, the ACG provides its members with the most accurate and up-to-date scientific information on digestive health and the etiology, symptomatology and treatment of GI disorders. ACG’s advocacy in the public policy arenas, and the work of the ACG’s 22 committees have made tremendous strides with many premiere accomplishments to improve the future of clinical gastroenterology and the quality of care available to patients with GI conditions and diseases, today. The information exchange and training acquired through College membership provide physicians with the knowledge necessary to offer the most effective patient care and to meet the challenges of today’s changing health care system. For more information about becoming a member, click here.

Mission

The mission of the American College of Gastroenterology shall be to advance the medical treatment and scientific study of gastrointestinal disorders. The College will strive to serve the evolving needs of physicians in the delivery of high quality scientific, humanistic, clinical, ethical, and cost-effective health care to gastroenterology patients.

Our goals are:

1. To provide continuing medical education to clinicians through scientific publications, meetings, and multimedia, web-based offerings;
2. To represent the clinician in national and local health care policy issues to ensure that the best interests of patient care and clinical medicine are served;
3. To promote and provide assistance in education to clinical gastroenterologists and fellows-in-training in cost-effective, efficient, and high quality practice management;
4. To promote, encourage and support clinical research in gastroenterologic disorders through the ACG Institute for Clinical Research;
5. To be a source of educational information for patients with gastrointestinal disorders and their families and to provide liaison with patient advocacy organizations for those with gastrointestinal and hepatic disorders.

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2011-2012 ACG President

Lawrence R. Schiller, MD, FACG

Dr. Schiller received his medical degree in 1972 from Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. He completed his Internship and Residency, and served as Chief Resident, at Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia. He left his hometown of Philadelphia for gastroenterology fellowship training at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Dallas. Dr. Schiller served as a Major in the U.S. Army as a physician from 1976 to 1978.

He is committed to training young gastroenterologists and currently serves as the Program Director for the GI Fellowship at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas. He is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He practices gastroenterology with Digestive Health Associates of Texas, P.A., where he is a founding member of one of the largest private GI practices in the nation.

Dr. Schiller has contributed 173 published articles, reviews, book chapters and abstracts, primarily in the areas of diarrheal disease, malabsorption and gastrointestinal motility disorders. He was a co-author on two evidence-based systematic reviews developed by the ACG Institute, Chronic Constipation in 2005 and Irritable Bowel Syndrome in 2010. Dr. Schiller presented the David Sun Lecture, a distinguished lecture at the ACG Postgraduate course in October, 2001 entitled, “Chronic Diarrhea.” Baylor University Medical Center recognized his teaching with the Gastroenterology Fellows Teaching Award in 2003 and 2004.

A member of the Texas Society for Gastroenterology and Endoscopy since 1993, he served as President from 2000 to 2002, and received TSGE’s Marcel Patterson-Robert Nelson Award in 2007.

An active and dedicated contributor to the life of the College, Dr. Schiller has served on several key committees, including the Research, Educational Affairs, Professional Issues, and Practice Parameters Committees. He was elected to serve on the ACG Board of Governors, as Governor for North Texas, from 2002 to 2004. He has served on the ACG Board of Trustees since 2004, and was a member of the ACG Institute Management Committee from 2006 to 2010.

Dr. Schiller’s service to the College and clinical practice experience gives him a unique perspective on the current landscape in gastroenterology. “We live in challenging times and substantial changes lay ahead for patient care, medical practice, medical education, and clinical research. As the leading organization of gastroenterology practitioners, ACG is committed to helping its members direct those changes in ways that will enhance the care that we can provide to our patients,” he said.

“Over the course of my career, I have worked in the United States Army, the Veterans Administration Healthcare System, academic medical centers, as a sole practitioner and as a member of a large private practice gastroenterology group. This has given me the opportunity to see how different schemes of healthcare work and an appreciation for the business aspects of practice,” explained Dr. Schiller, in reflecting upon assuming the Presidency of the ACG. “This variety of experiences also allows me to understand the practice environments that most of our members experience every day and will inform decisions that I will have to make as President of ACG.”

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2011-2012 Board of Trustees

Officers

President

Lawrence R. Schiller, MD, FACG
Clinical Professor, UT Southwestern, Dallas
Program Director, Gastroenterology Fellowship, Baylor University Medical Center
Chairman, Institutional Review Board for Human Subject Protection, Baylor University Medical Center
Dallas, TX

President-Elect

Ronald J. Vender, MD, FACG
Professor of Internal Medicine
Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs
Chief Medical Officer for Yale Medical Group
Medical Director, Yale CME
Yale School of Medicine
New Haven, CT

Vice President

Harry E. Sarles, Jr., MD, FACG
Founding Partner, Digestive Health Associates of Texas
Garland, TX

Secretary

Kenneth R. DeVault, MD, FACG
Professor of Medicine
Chair, Department of Medicine
Mayo Clinic
Jacksonville, FL

Treasurer

Stephen B. Hanauer, MD, FACG
The Joseph B. Kirsner Professor of Medicine and Clinical Pharmacology
Chief, Section of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition
University of Chicago Medical Center
Chicago, IL

Immediate Past President

Delbert L. Chumley, MD, FACG
Partner, Gastroenterology Consultants of San Antonio
San Antonio, TX

Past President

Philip O. Katz, MD, FACG
Clinical Professor of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University
Chairman, Division of Gastroenterology, Albert Einstein Medical Center
Philadelphia, PA

Director, ACG Institute

Edgar Achkar, MD, MACG
Consultant, Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland, OH

Chair, Board of Governors

David A. Greenwald, MD, FACG
GI Fellowship Training Director, Montefiore Medical Center
Professor of Clinical Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bronx, NY

Vice Chair, Board of Governors

Daniel J. Pambianco, MD, FACG
Charlottesville Gastroenterology Associates
Director of Endoscopy at Martha Jefferson Hospital
Charlottesville, VA

Trustee for Administrative Affairs

John W. Popp, Jr., MD, MACG
Medical Director, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Columbia, SC

Co-Editor, AJG

William D. Chey, MD, FACG
Professor of Medicine
H. Marvin Pollard Institute Scholar
Director, GI Physiology Laboratory
Co-Director, Michigan Bowel Control Program
University of Michigan Health System
Ann Arbor, MI

Co-Editor, AJG

Paul Moayyedi, MD, FACG
Professor, Department of Medicine
Director, Division of Gastroenterology
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Trustees

Neena S. Abraham, MD, FACG
Associate Professor of Medicine
Sections of Gastroenterology & Health Services Research
Michael E. DeBakey VAMC
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, TX

Carol A. Burke, MD, FACG
Director, Center for Colon Polyp and Cancer Prevention
Head, Section of Polyposis, Sanford R. Weiss, MD Center for Hereditary Colorectal Neoplasia
Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Department of Colorectal Surgery and Taussig Cancer Insitute
Cleveland Clinic
Cleveland, OH

R. Bruce Cameron, MD, FACG
Clinical Professor
CWRU School of Medicine
Cleveland, OH

Naga P. Chalasani, MD, FACG
Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Integrative Physiology
Director, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Indiana University School of Medicine
Indianapolis, IN

Francis A. Farraye, MD, MSc, FACG
Clinical Director, Section of Gastroenterology, Boston Medical Center
Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine
Boston, MA

Sunanda V. Kane, MD, MSPH, FACG
Professor of Medicine and Chair of Quality
Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
Mayo Clinic
Rochester, MN

W. Elwyn Lyles, MD, FACG
Vice President
Alexandria Gastroenterology Associates, Inc.
Alexandria, LA

Irving M. Pike, MD, FACG
Assistant Professor, Clinical Internal Medicine
Eastern Virginia Medical School
Gastroenterology Consultants
Virginia Beach, VA

Mark B. Pochapin, MD, FACG
Director, The Jay Monahan Center for Gastrointestinal Health
Chief, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, New York-Presbyterian Hospital
Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University
New York, NY

Nicholas J. Shaheen, MD, FACG
Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology
Director, Center for Esophageal Diseases and Swallowing
University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Chapel Hill, NC

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ACG Headquarters

During the first week of February 2005, the American College of Gastroenterology moved into its new national headquarters building located in Bethesda, Maryland. In recognition of the continued outstanding growth in membership and programming, the move is designed to permit the College’s administrative staff to better serve the needs of the organization and its members. The new space provides a significant upgrade in the amount of work-space and will permit the College to meet its administrative staffing needs for the foreseeable future.

The move to increase administrative capacity is an outgrowth of the review of the College’s capabilities and resources that began in 2001 with then President Edgar Achkar’s appointment of a strategic planning committee and culminated with the ratification of the ACG Strategic Plan in 2002. The College’s Board of Trustees believes all members will benefit from an increased level of service and new and exciting programs that build on the ACG’s unique role as champion of clinical gastroenterology.

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75th Anniversary Book

American College of Gastroenterology 1932 – 2007
Seventy-Five Years of Commitment to Clinical Gastroenterology, Gastroenterologists and Patient Health

ACG marked its 75th Anniversary in 2007 and to celebrate our anniversary, we published a book that highlights our history. There is a long list of individuals, members past and present, who contributed to the publication, compiling ACG’s history and various milestones throughout our 75 years. ACG thanks all those individuals who contributed their time to see this book come to fruition. In addition, the Archives Committee put so much of their time into developing this book as well and ACG wishes to recognize the ACG Archive Committee members:

Kevin W. Olden, MD, FACG, Chair
James L. Achord, MD, MACG
V. Alin Botoman, MD, FACG
Mitchell S. Cappell, MD, FACG
Robert E. Kravetz, MD, MACG
Myron Lewis, MD, MACG
Arvey I. Rogers, MD, MACG
Sidney Winawer, MD, MACG
Alvin Zfass, MD, MACG

Committee members want to personally recognize the late Albert C. Svoboda, MD, MACG, who prior to his passing, dedicated a great deal of his time to see this project come to fruition. A special acknowledgement of Dr. Svoboda is included in the book.

PDFs of each chapter may be found below:

Table of Contents, Dedication, Foreword, Acknowledgements and Timeline

Chapter 1: The Founding and the Early Years, 1932 – 1954
Chapter 2: Growth and Maturity
Chapter 3: Making an Impact
Chapter 4: The College Focuses on Practitioners, Public Education, and Practice
Chapter 5: A Decade of Progress (1997 – 2007)
Chapter 6: Winds of Change: Challenging Issues
Chapter 7: Yesterdays, Today, and Tomorrows: Recollections, Reflections, and perspectives from Past Presidents
Chapter 8: Awards and Lectures
Appendices
Index

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