Page 63 - IFSO-History-Book-Digital-File

02 - George SM Cowan Jr. 1998–1999 USA

Professor Cowan, second IFSO President, was also a past
president of the American Society of Bariatric Surgery (now the
American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery [ASMBS]), at
the time, the leading obesity surgical society in the world. Cowan
was a member of the Board of Directors of the American College
of Nutrition, and received the Claxton Award from the American
Association of University Professors. Dr. Cowan authored or
co-authored over 250 scientific publications, including four books,
one of which, Intravenous Hyperalimentation, was the first book
published on intravenous nutrition.

Under his leadership, IFSO forged foundational organizational
bylaws and issued early guidance statements, including the
indications for obesity surgery, and also the qualifications required
to be an MBS surgeon. Cowan also co-founded the Obesity
Surgery journal with Professor Mervyn Deitel. Obesity Surgery
became the official journal of IFSO. Cowan was the chair of IFSO’s
Board of Trustees and the International Obesity Surgery Task
Force. He received the IFSO Gold Medal Award for his
outstanding service to the field. During his time in office, IFSO
grew from five national and multi-national societies to 23 societies,
representing 43 nations around the world.

03 - Emanuel Hell 1999-2000 Austria
One of the pioneers of MBS globally, Professor Hell wrote and
published the first book on MBS in the German language. He
presided over the 1999 IFSO World Congress held in Salzburg,
Austria. Hell considered the problem of the highly fragmented
MBS data across Europe, noting that countries tracked patient
outcomes often using completely different metrics. By
standardizing European-wide data collection and building the
infrastructure for multi-country clinical data sharing, he
established the foundation that allowed MBS surgeons to track
complication rates, and eventually, to measure early and
long-term safety globally. In addition, multi-country data tracking
helped demonstrate to health ministries and insurance providers
that MBS was a highly effective, legitimate intervention rather than
a cosmetic treatment. Hell’s early work set the stage for the
much-later development of the IFSO Global Registry that, today,
aggregates data on hundreds of thousands of MBS procedures
worldwide.

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