I've Been Cancelled?
For the past eight months, I met with a group of acute-care therapists to develop an early mobility presentation a PT conference. With four hours of allotted time, we met one to two times a month to organize the presentation. We divided up tasks such as typing the handout, finding photos and researching current trends. I think I have over 50 hours of time dedicated to developing this presentation. I spent hours making the margins of the handout exactly right. Many times we thought of new ideas and emailed the group with our thoughts, and happily saw pieces of the presentation come together more cohesively. We masterfully prepared a beautiful CE course, titled "Addressing Challenges to Early Mobility."
By the title of this blog, you know what is about to happen. We received an email last week saying the registration numbers for our course were low, likely due to other programming we were concurrently scheduled against. We were asked if we would like to withdraw from the conference, as the time we spent preparing for the course might not be justified if only a handful of attendees would hear the material. We may be able to instead present the course as a stand-alone CE offering, giving us time to market the course and not compete with other courses.
Oh, the heartbreak! I was devastated. I didn't see this coming. I was so excited to be involved in this project relatively soon after graduating. Imagine, having "Presented at a PT conference" on your resume! I was thrilled to be a part of something like this. While there is potential we will still be able to present our course, part of me is just sad to know we didn't complete what we had worked for.
I know we will (hopefully) have another opportunity to present the material, so I am thankful for that. And even though our course was cancelled, it was still a good learning experience to prepare a presentation to teach to other therapists.
What do you think? Have you ever worked toward something professionally and not been able to complete your goal? Have you ever presented a CE course?