After the Meeting; Now What?
I just returned from the ASCLS/AACC joint annual meeting in Los Angeles. It was great seeing old friends and colleagues, interacting with peers and getting cutting edge information on the latest scientific and technological advances in medical laboratory sciences.
The world's largest clinical laboratory exposition showcased hundreds of international vendors; so many, in fact, that they had to be housed in two different exhibit halls. It took several hours to simply go from booth to booth.
It is always a heady experience to be in the same venue, often in the same room, with top notch scientists, many of whom you have just read about; or used their work as references. Like most other professions, we do have our own rock-stars and celebrities. As a featured speaker, I am humbled when colleagues say they feel that way about me.
Now that I am back home, I am going through my "conference bag" and arranging business cards and notes: contact this person, send requested information to that person, follow up on this topic, do more research on this subject. I am sure I am not unique in that regard.
It is easy to get all pumped up and enthusiastic at a conference; but what do you take away and what do you do differently in your everyday life and at your place of work? Conferences do provide a degree of hype and emotion, but that is short lived. The lessons learned and information gleaned should be operationalized in order to truly benefit from the experience.
What resonated most with you? Was it revenue enhancement, reducing cost, increasing productivity, alternative dispute resolution or expanding your scope of influence in the organization? Whatever it is, please do something to put it into practice. The information is too valuable and the cost of conferences is too high to simply use them for a quick, momentary high and nothing else.
I would like to hear from readers (whether you attended this meeting or not) what you learned from a medical laboratory conference and how you intend to use it in your laboratory.