My first full day at the Alliance for Continuing Education in the Health Professions annual conference, going on now in Orlando, was packed. Some notes on the meeting as a meeting.
I'll get the whining out of the way first:
-Yes, I already have stuffed-brain syndrome from having way too much thrown at me in too little time with no connection between session topics and no time for reflection built in.
-We hit the "I know you can't read this slide, but..." wall before the first general session was over.
-We hit the "I know this classroom setup makes it almost impossible to break into small groups, but we'll have to do our best..." shortly thereafter.
-Healthy food is good, but replacing the chips with bean salad and the cookie with an apple in the bag lunch seems a bit over the top. Must we resort to Starbucks for all our dietary sins?
-Speaking of over the top, is it just me, or are there way too many sessions to choose from? I know, tough problem to have, but I'm finding myself torn between six or seven I want to go to in every single time slot. It's making me crazy to be missing so much good content (and hearing people tweet about some of those sessions to the #acehp12 hashtag just makes it worse).
Awesome aspects, meeting-wise:
-Free WiFi! Thanks to Bernie Halbur, PhD, FACME, ACEHP's Professional Development & Meeting Management Director, for making it happen, along with everything else we're enjoying logistically. I gave her a standing ovation when she was recognized yesterday at the general session, and I wasn't the only one.
-Love having the brief outdoor breezeway walk to the exhibition area, and the tables set up for eating/hanging out/computing along the way. At least we're assured of the opportunity to catch five minutes or so of the gorgeous Florida weather as we go back and forth, instead of never even knowing if the sun is shining or not, as so often happens at marathon meetings.
-Beautiful hotel (the JW Marriott), beautiful rooms, nice jogging path, great fitness center. I don't know much about golf, but the course looks good to me.
-Being able to hold the new CCMEP celebration out on the patio last night was a wonderful touch. Again, being able to get outside in January means a lot, especially to those of us who hail from the frozen North!
(Cross-posted on Capsules, where I'll be posting a bunch more that's content-specific to continuing medical education, so if you're into that, come on over and browse!)