Dr. Carolina Olano, Secretary General World Gastroenterology Organization (WGO): Gender equality, climate change and education will be priorities for the WGO

Carolina proudly confesses to being a Latin American gastroenterologist and recognizes herself as a lover of this specialty. Professor of medicine at the University of the Republic of Uruguay, today assumes as secretary general of the World Gastroenterology Organization (WGO), confirming her commitment to the fair development of quality medicine accessible from the regions of the Americas, Africa and Middle East, Europe and Asia Pacific.

Coming from the interior of Uruguay, from a town called Vergara, Carolina Olano grew up in a middle-class family and a lot of effort, as she describes it. The daughter of a teacher mother and banker father, she was educated along with her sister with clear values ​​and principles, forging respect for others and appreciation for effort and dedication, as a daily task that always brings rewards in life. She comments between laughs that her mother assures that she wanted to be a doctor since she was 6 years old, a decision that she never doubted, and that only involved other choices when choosing her subspecialty, when at the beginning of her career she was blinded by Surgery. Remember that he had a mentor and great master of surgery in those years, with a great storytelling ability and that he used to tell them mythological legends such as “Laocconte” and this battle that a Trojan priest and his twin sons waged against sea serpents, making the allusion to the fight of the surgeon, with the help of the endoscopist and the radiologist, against the disease. Today Carolina assures that history would probably be different, since in a collaborative dynamic, with no specialist being more important than another, gastroenterologists and endoscopists wage a very professional battle in the fight against digestive pathologies.

Dr. Olano was president of the Uruguayan Society of Gastroenterology a few years ago, and she also has a long history at OPGE. Although today she assumes the post of secretary general of the WGO, her history in this place is as long as in the academy, where she is still the only professor of gastroenterology at her house of studies, the University of the Republic.

How do you assume this new commitment within WGO?
This position for me is a challenge and a high honor, since it is an organization that brings together 117 member societies, representing more than 60,000 gastroenterologists and that has welcomed professionals of the highest level, representing the 4 most important regions of the globe: The Americas, Africa and the Middle East, Europe and Asia Pacific.
I also feel very proud to hold this position as a professional Latin American woman, which commits me to channel and represent the concerns of the union and gender, in terms of all the countries that WGO represents, in addition to considering other aspects of current affairs as is the post-pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
In this first stage, I not only hope to follow the guidelines of our president at WGO, Dr. Guilherme Macedo, but also continue with the work of inclusion of women in gastroenterology and enable spaces that allow them to access leadership positions and the promotion of development of the female professional career, identifying all types of open or covert discrimination.

In addition to the efforts in terms of gender equity, what are the challenges in WGO?
Another big challenge is climate change. Migration and the appearance of new infectious diseases in areas most affected by climate change are a current concern in our directive. We seek to collect the needs in a timely manner, learning from the inequities that the pandemic uncovered in 2020 and 2021.

Another important aspect of our work plan is education, and for this we will continue with the TTT program, Train the Trainers, which also includes the development of soft skills such as teamwork, group discussion, adult education, communication techniques, and other more leadership-oriented components. For that, we hope to focus on the most vulnerable regions and with fewer specialists in order to facilitate access to training in endoscopy and hepatology, among others. Along these same lines, a program aimed at young people was recently created, associated with leadership, which will help them conduct their careers based on their stated objectives and includes remote tutoring, so that together we can help them design their roadmap, considering the conditioning factors that determine it and taking advantage of the WGO’s instruments and networks, with a strong motivational component.

Carolina feels fulfilled as a woman and professional. Married to a lawyer and mother of two children, a communications sciences student (22 years old) and a basketball player studying business administration (19), she comments that she still cultivates traditions very typical of rural family life, and is very attentive to the formation of good people. Likewise, as an academic of the Faculty of Medicine, she treasures the instances of conversation with the new generations, insisting on the vocation of service and humanity in the treatment of the patient, especially at times when we give bad news.

“It is so important to shake hands or caress the patient who suffers or who experiences fear or uncertainty. I would not want our doctors to lose those skills that are as powerful as knowledge or good treatment. In the same way, I try to convey to them that effort is the requirement that prevails in every project that is undertaken, as well as the determination not to abandon our purpose.The patient is not a set of organs, he is a human being who feels and that we must keep at the center of our daily work “, he concludes.

Review:
Dr. Olano is Professor Director of the Department of Gastroenterology at the University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay. She graduated in medicine (MD) from the University of the Republic, Montevideo, Uruguay in 1993 and obtained a postgraduate degree in Gastroenterology from the same university in 1996. She completed her training in gastrointestinal endoscopy at the Gastroenterology Clinic and associated public hospitals in Montevideo. After an internship at the department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Infectious Diseases at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg, Germany in 2008, she specialized in video capsule endoscopy and enteroscopy.

She has shown a deep interest in university education, achieving in 2010 a master’s degree (M Sc (Ed)) at a private university in Montevideo (Universidad ORT). Dr. Olano participates in educational activities of the World Gastroenterology Organization, has been part of the faculty of the Spanish TTT program and was a member of the working groups of the guidelines for IBS and celiac disease. She is the current Secretary General of the WGO, after stepping down as Chairman of its Scientific Committee.
She has held various positions in the Uruguayan Society of Gastroenterology, including President, Secretary and President of International Affairs.

Her main areas of interest include intestinal diseases and medical education.