At the 1976 annual meeting of the organization then called the International Academy of Pathology (IAP), now the United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP), the long course was devoted to gastrointestinal pathology. Due to its success, the first evening subspecialty conference devoted to gastrointestinal pathology was presented the following year at the IAP annual meeting in March 1977. That first evening session was organized by Jack Yardley from Johns Hopkins University, and included Henry Appelman (University of Michigan), Harvey Goldman (Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School), Bill Hawk (The Cleveland Clinic), Tom Kent (University of Iowa), Si-Chun Ming (Temple University), Tom Norris (University of Washington), and Robert Riddell (University of Chicago). This group, headed by Henry Appelman, organized a group for gastrointestinal pathologists.