The Mediterranean Society of Coloproctology was founded in Rome in 1998, the first biennial Congress was held in Milan one year later, and the next one, the eleventh, will take place in Thessaloniki in 2018.
The purposes of the M.S.C.P. are:
- to gather into one Association all surgeons and physicians from Mediterranean countries who have a special interest in coloproctology
- to encourage and promote scientific and cultural exchange among the above countries
- to promote visits and implement continuing education of doctors from the above countries. Particular interest shall be dedicated to surgical training and technological update
- to establish a network of coloproctology units (at least one in each of the above countries) in close contact with each other, and each one acting in its own country as a reference point for local coloproctologists
- to promote and organize a biennial international convention
- to encourage the establishment of colorectal surgery as a specialty in all of the above countries.
Today the society joins medical doctors and scientists from several Mediterranean countries (Africa: Egypt, Morocco; Asia: Israel,Turkey; Europe: Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina,Montenegro, Slovenia and Spain.
Despite almost all Mediterranean countries has a representative in the MSCP, we are far from the initial goal of the founders, in the sense that the Society never had more than 100 members and that basically its activity is confined to the biennial congress. Training courses have been organized during the last years,In Egypt, Isarel, Spain, France Slovenia and Italy, but the attendance has been limited so far. This is probably due to TWO MAIN REASONS: 1.the distance among the councilors and the members, living in different continents and involved in the activity of the respective national colorectal Societies. 2.the low incomes of the Society, due to the fact that just few minor companies have been attracted by us, because our policy is to work WITH industry, not FOR industry, and we have been rather critical towards the abuse of some technological innovations. It happened that the long list of contributions concerning ETHICS and INNOVATIONS and criticizing the misleading messages of the media, appeared in Tech Coloproctol 2009, was stimulated by a correspondence of Ferruccio Boffi, MSCP past Treasurer and current Website Chairman
Nevertheless some important results have been achieved, the first ones being that MSCP has an outstanding official journal, Techniques in Coloproctology (covering the Meetings Procedings with Suppplements), that the biennial Meetings are characterized by a friendly atmosphere and a high scientific standard and that the Society website, recently completely renovated, is efficiently run by Ferruccio Boffi.
The Maghreb and Middle East countries’ situation in the field of Coloproctology is much different from that of the European countries, where Colorectal Surgery is a well developed subspecialty. One difficulty found by the MSCP councilors is to find corresponding colleagues in Maroc, Lybia, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria and Lebanon with a clinical and research activity fully devoted to the management of large bowel and pelvic floor diseases.
However, when the MSCP Meeting has been organized in, say, “peripheral” countries, such as Slovenia (the beautiful Otocek, chairman our past President Pavle Kosorok) its success greatly encouraged the development of our specialty.
In conclusion, we will continue our efforts to keep together the small but compact “MSCP family” and to spread our knowledge and expertise in all the Mediterranean countries, through the journal, the website and the biennial Congresses.
Mario Pescatori MD, FSCR, EBSQ
Honorary President of the MSCP
