Dear colleaguesIt is with great pleasure that I invite you to attend the first annual Cleveland Clinic Florida department of colorectal surgery symposium in Japan. This program, chaired by Professor Yasunobu Tsujinaka, has been created using the same format as our annual international colorectal disease symposium that I have hosted each of the last 17 years in Florida. The topics and faculty were selected based upon a needs-assessment of Asian general and colorectal surgeons. The same in depth coverage of state of the art topics by renowned speakers will allow the registrant a comprehensive overview of new and exciting diagnostic and therapeutic modalities. A wide array of technical and technological advances especially those issues germane to practice in Asia have been selected as the focus of the program. As in the annual Florida course, each series of 5-7 15 minute lectures will be followed by a 30 minute discussion period during which questions will be answered. Extensive audience participation is expected given the unique interactive size of the anticipated audience and the high baseline fund of knowledge of the registrants. The important topics chosen for the symposium include rectal carcinoma, laparoscopy, functional disorders, and benign anorectal diseases. The speakers have been selected from among our most accomplished Cleveland Clinic Florida department of colorectal surgery Asian alumni and friends. Along with the symposium chairman professor Tsujinaka we will insure a detailed assessment of all of these topics by these authorities. In addition in order to insure compliance with the highest standard that we use for our annual international colorectal disease course Cleveland Clinic Florida will award category 1 CME credits for this program. Therefore all of the most rigorous methods will be used to insure optimal education including faculty selection, syllabus submission, full disclosure, and course evaluation. It will be my great privilege to personally welcome you to our first Cleveland Clinic Florida department of colorectal surgery Japanese symposium on June 10 2006. it was my honor to be invited by professor Tsujinaka to chair this meeting and I very much look forward to sharing that honor with you on June 10.
Steven D. Wexner, M.D., FACS, FRCS, FRCS(Ed)
Symposium Director