As busy doctors, we are seeing patients day in and day out. How does a doctor keep up with changing medical landscape?
My most favorite thing to catch up with all advances in field of Endocrinology, is to attend Endocrine Society meetings. There are two major clinical bodies in general endocrinology, namely Endocrine Society and American Association of Clinical Endocrinology (AACE). Along with this, there are specific organizations such as American Thyroid Association, Obesity Medicine association, American Diabetes Association (ADA) etc. Doctors annually attend meetings conducted by these societies to keep up with advances in the field.
These medical bodies play a crucial role in updating physicians of latest in their field, advocating for patients and formulating guidelines for clinical practice providing framework within which care is delivered.
I love attending these meetings in person. Taking time from daily routine, you get an opportunity to completely immerse yourself in the subject, that caught your attention as a naïve medical student! You wear a learner’s hat and soak up all the information you can get.
It helps me search for specific answers for particularly difficult to solve patient cases.
You learn about new technologies and medications, that will soon be applied to clinical practice, and gives you a glimpse into future of Endocrinology and medicine in general. It’s a great platform to meet old friends and colleagues from all over the country and network a little.
This year, I attended a fantastic meeting at the Endocrine Society in Boston, MA. In four days spent between conferences and poster presentations, networking events and plenaries, I came home with recharged batteries. I had two strong take home points from my meeting this year.
First, presence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in medicine. AI is here to stay in medicine and its role is going to expand over time. Doctors and patients alike are going to learn how to adapt to technology in healthcare.
Second, the field of metabolic health is going to see explosive growth. All the lifestyle diseases plaguing our patients, obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, fatty liver is going to see novel and varied treatment interventions with hopefully more affordable treatment options.
Now that I am back with more positive and enthusiastic outlook towards the field of my choice, lets get back to taking care of patients….until next year’s Academic meetingJ