International Society for Digestive Surgery (ISDS)

In early 1969, Professor Louis F. Hollender of Strasbourg, France and Professors Giuseppe Grassi and G. Benedetti-Valentini of Rome, Italy initiated discussions on how to gather together gastrointestinal surgeons of world renown and create an organization through which digestive surgical issues could be debated in a specialized and yet open forum.

On September 29, 1969, the trio founded the Collegium Internationale Chirurgiae Digestivae (CICD) as an offshoot to the Société Internationale de Chirurgie. The founding aims of the new college were clearly defined: to present current information to the medical world concerning advances in gastrointestinal surgery, to permit the free exchange of new knowledge, to allow comparison of experiences, to stimulate clinical studies and to seek improved diagnostic and therapeutic measures. It was agreed that there would be no political, racial, ideological or religious discrimination. The only criteria for membership would be surgical merit and proven. The Society currently has 1205 members representing twenty three countries.