I really did mean to post from the National Task Force on CME Provider/Industry Collaboration conference this week in Baltimore, but the laptop gods were not with me. One observation that came up immediately after registering: The badges just had people's names, city, and state—no organization. Keep in mind the whole point of this meeting was to encourage collaboration between continuing medical education providers and the pharmaceutical companies who support their activities financially. One attendee told me she had heard they left off the organizations so the providers wouldn't be bothering the pharma folks. I have no idea if that's true, but does that make any sense at all to you? I just shook my head and replaced mine with a business card, so at least people would know they were talking with the press.
One other little quibble, then I'll concentrate on writing up some of the highlights (for me, anyway): There didn't seem to be a lot of new information, and those of us who had attended several previous conferences were disappointed, especially the first day. But, I reminded myself, there were a lot of first-timers there, and the same sessions I found to be same-old, same-old, they loved. I wonder if this conference might be in need of two tracks: One for newbies, one for those of us who've been to a few. Just a thought.
