A student-led, faculty-supervised public campaign — "Ihdam BiSiha" (Digest Healthily) — brought interactive education on IBD, colorectal cancer, GERD, IBS, and Crohn's disease to outpatients at KKUH on Thursday and to families at The Zone on Friday, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Nahla Azzam.
The Internal Medicine Interest Group and KKUH GI Division team — supervised by Prof. Dr. Nahla Azzam — at the campaign launch.
On Thursday 14 May and Friday 15 May 2026, the Saudi Gastroenterology Association (SGA) partnered with the King Saud University Medicine Club's Internal Medicine Interest Group and the Gastroenterology Division at King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH) to deliver a two-day community-facing awareness campaign under the brand "Ihdam BiSiha" — Arabic for "Digest Healthily."
The campaign's objective was clear: take six of the most-encountered, least-discussed gastrointestinal conditions in Saudi Arabia — colorectal cancer, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel syndrome, gastroesophageal reflux disease, and inflammatory bowel disease more broadly — and translate them into language, visuals, and interactions that an outpatient or a family at a shopping complex can absorb in five minutes.
"What you are seeing today is not a one-off booth; it is the start of a model where our students, our trainees, and our consultants build the public-facing layer of every disease we treat."
Day one was hosted at the outpatient clinics of KKUH from 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM, embedding the campaign into the natural patient-flow of the hospital. Day two moved the campaign to The Zone, a community-facing complex in Riyadh, from 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM, opening the conversation to families, teenagers, and the non-clinical public.
Each themed booth carried one condition and one take-home message. The Crohn's booth explained chronic inflammation and the early-warning symptoms; the ulcerative colitis booth showed why bloody stools must never be normalised; the GERD booth made the case for lifestyle change before lifelong medication; and the IBS / neurogenic-colon booth reframed a condition the Saudi public often dismisses as "just stress." A central "Fact or Myth?" interactive station — featuring an iPad-driven prize wheel — let visitors test the most common GI misconceptions and walk away with a corrective answer card.
A dedicated children's area used colouring sheets to teach the youngest visitors about reflux, gut health, and safe food choices — a small but deliberate move that the organisers describe as "planting digestive-health literacy at age four."
The campaign was supervised by Prof. Dr. Nahla Azzam — Consultant Gastroenterologist, Professor of Medicine at King Saud University, and an active SGA contributor. "What you are seeing today is not a one-off booth; it is the start of a model where our students, our trainees, and our consultants build the public-facing layer of every disease we treat," Dr. Azzam said on the second evening of the campaign.
For the SGA, the Ihdam BiSiha campaign is a template the society plans to replicate across Saudi cities through 2026–2027 — a structured handshake between the academic medical centre, the medicine club, and the national society, anchored on Saudi Vision 2030's preventive-health priorities.
