The Scandiavian Association for Gastrointestinal Motility (SAGIM) was founded in 1987 by Peter Funch Jensen (Denmark) the first president, Hasse Abrahamsson (Sweden) the first secretary, and Jon Haffner (Norway) the first treasurer.
The main object of the organisation was to work out methodological standards in Scandinavia. Six working groups were established at the first SAGIM meeting in Oslo in October 1987: the oesophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, the biliary tract, and the colon and ano-rectum group. At the second meeting in Gothenburg in November 1989 the proposals from the working groups were discussed and the final manuscript was published as a supplementum in Acta Chirurgica, The European Journal of Surgery, Suppl. No 564 in 1991. The third SAGIM meeting was held in Copenhagen in April 1991 and the fourth SAGIM meeting in Stockholm in 1994.
The 8th European Symposium on Gastrointestinal Motility was held in Copenhagen in June 1996 with Peter Funch Jensen as responsible organizer. At this meeting the present president Einar Husebye was elected member of the new steering committee of The European Motility Society. In June 1997, a symposium "Computer Analysis in manometric Studies of Upper Gastrointestinal Motility" was held in Odense. Since 1991 a motility session at the Scandinavian gastroenterology meetings has been arranged by the steering committee of SAGIM in coorperation with the local organising committee. In October 1998 the first SAGIM postgraduate course in gastrointestinal motility was held in Gothenburg. The educational and scientific quality of this course equals the requirements for courses at the Ph.D. level. It is the steering committee’s intention to arrange a postgraduate course every second year. The number of SAGIM members is about 200. Since the foundation of SAGIM, Janssen-Cilag has been the head sponsor.
Written by Lene Wallin, Glostrup, Denmark