Hepatology is among the most international of any medical subspecialty in the world. In that spirit, AASLD President Dr. Scott Friedman represented the Association at a Global Liver Summit held in Sao Paolo Brazil on April 13, 2009, hosted by the Latin American Association for the Study of Liver (ALEH). The meeting was the third such annual Summit, bringing together leadership from key international partners including EASL and ALEH. Leadership from APASL was invited but unable to join. EASL was represented by outgoing Secretary General Jean-Michel Pawlotsky (France) and his successor, Heinrich Wedemeyer (Germany), and Peter Jansen (Netherlands), Chair of the EASL Education Committee. ALEH was represented by their President, Angelo Alves de Mattos (Brazil), First Vice President, Milagros Davalos (Peru), and second Vice-President, Nahum Mendes-Sanches, (Mexico), as well as the ALEH Secretary Cláudio Marroni, MD (Brazil) and Councilor / Delegate, Edna Strauss (Brazil).
The all-day meeting was marked by highly collegial and wide-ranging discussions about the histories and systems of governance for the respective organizations, emerging trends in training and research, and future planning. Most importantly, strategies for continued integration and sharing of educational programs between the Associations directed at their respective members and trainees were discussed in detail, with plans for joint society participation at the 2010 Global Summit tentatively scheduled to be held in Germany (hosted by EASL), and in the 2010 ALEH meeting in Porto Allegre, Brazil, among others.
The recognition that each society and region faces many similar challenges brought a sense of shared responsibility to improve the lives of patients with liver disease throughout the world. Thanks to the warm spirit of this meeting and the personal connections it engendered, there is little doubt of continued growth and synergy among these global representatives of the specialty of hepatology.
For complete notes from the meeting, 
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