Beyond abstracts: how to make the most of your annual meeting

0:00 Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients. When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research program. Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit. However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

0:40 For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene. Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast. I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is a pleasure to be talking with you today. I am recording live and direct from my annual meeting, the American Society of Hematology Animal Meeting. Yes. And I'm excited to be thinking about the annual meeting. So yes, all things coming to you this week are really about the annual meeting because it's on my mind.

1:24 And I'm like, what do I tell my crew today? What do I tell my Clinician Researcher podcast audience? And I can't think of anything outside of the annual meeting. So yeah, if yesterday was about the annual meeting and the day before was about the annual meeting, yes, today is also about the annual meeting, or at least an annual meeting theme. And I would like to give you a spoiler alert, tomorrow may also be about the annual meeting. But this particular episode is called How to Be Okay With Having Nothing to Present at Your Animal Meeting. How to Be Okay With Having Nothing to Present at Your Animal Meeting. And this is a really important episode because, wow, a lot of people are not okay. And I recorded an episode a day or two ago about the annual meeting blues.

2:09 And so this particular one is an important one, because sometimes the annual meeting blues comes from, or they come from, having nothing to present because people are reminding you that what are you even doing here? You have nothing to present. Oh my goodness, yes, okay. Having nothing to present, it's okay. And I'll tell you actually that the people who are okay that you didn't submit an abstract this year are the abstract committee or the people who review abstracts and all those people who are involved in like preparing abstracts. Because holy cow, there was an ungodly number of abstracts submitted this year. And I know because I was an abstract reviewer.

2:53 And I did not know when I was asked to review abstracts that I would be reviewing hundreds of abstracts. Like what? Hundreds? Are you kidding me? Yep, I reviewed over 100. I don't remember exactly the final tally, but I think it was 144. That's a lot of abstracts. Anyway, so thank you for not submitting to the annual meeting this year because that was one less abstract that I had to review. Yeah, okay, you're not buying it. All right, all right. Okay, let's talk about this episode. Okay, if you're at the annual meeting and you have nothing to present, there are some things you should think about as far as what else is the annual meeting about that is not necessarily about presenting a poster or an oral abstract or a plenary session.

3:37 Okay, I hope, I hope, let's just pray. I pray for you that once or twice or more in your lifetime, you'll have a plenary session to present at the annual meeting or you'll have like an amazing like the award abstract to present. I hope that happens for you many, many, many years in a row. But you know what? No matter how amazing you are, and I would argue that you are pretty amazing. I know because you're listening to me. It's not going to happen every year, right? There are going to be some years that you don't do that and it's okay. And so if you're one of those people at this time was nothing to present, I want to tell you that it's okay because it happens to everybody at least once in their career.

4:21 Yeah. And even your mentor who's like, what do you mean you're going to the annual meeting? You have nothing to present. It's happened to them once in their careers as well, at least once. It's happened at least once. And so I just want to encourage you that this is the way of all people that sometimes there'll be annual meetings at which you have nothing to present. I'm glad that you came or that you're considering going to your annual meeting because I want to tell you about other things that you can do at the annual meeting or other things that the annual meeting is about that makes it relevant that you're here and that you can enjoy. So the first thing I want to share is that the annual meeting is really about connection. And the annual meeting is about connecting. It's about connecting on so many levels.

5:04 The easy thing to think about when I'm talking about connecting at the annual meeting is connecting with your colleagues. And yeah, it's a place to connect with your colleagues. It's a place to connect with your former mentors or your former med school classmates or your former residency cohorts or maybe your fellowship cohort, which is such an amazing cohort, you know, it gets smaller over time. If you did med school and you went to residency and went to fellowship, usually the classes are getting smaller. And so kind of the intimacy of the depth of friendship and the trauma that you share, those are a little bit more, you know, they're a little more, more, more, more deep anyway.

5:46 But it's about connecting with those people too. So connecting with colleagues, connecting with people that you share some bond in some way or the other and connecting with mentors. But it's also about connecting with other people who are thinking about the same problems in different ways, right? Connecting with industry, it's about connecting with patient advocacy groups that are there, is about connecting with the foundation or the particular your annual meeting foundation, whichever foundation hosts your annual meeting. They've got like a whole host of ideas and a whole host of things that they want to do. It's really about connecting. And I have to tell you that the reason we struggled through the pandemic with our annual meetings is that, yeah, you can give a lot of information and the information is good, but to miss that electricity, the electric piece of connecting, it's really what makes meetings meetings.

6:41 And so if you are not presenting a poster or you're not presenting an abstract at your annual meeting this year, it's okay because what you want to make sure you do is make sure you connect and connect with the ideas, connect with the people who bring the ideas, connect. Don't, don't go pouting and sulking in a corner. Connect because perhaps this meeting is about so much more than just bringing the information. And I do want to thank everybody who did submit an abstract to the animal meeting this year and had a presentation. Thank you so much because if you didn't do that, we would not have the meeting. It wouldn't be as rich and as vibrant and as amazing as it was.

7:23 It wouldn't be. And so thank you for doing that. And to everybody else who didn't, it's okay because it's an opportunity to connect. Okay. Number two is that the animal meeting is about learning. Now this is kind of obvious. Like, yeah, I came to learn. I came to get all my CME. Well good for you. Make sure you learn something. However, there's a lot of learning that is non-CME and I want to invite you to consider that your learning should be a mix of CME learning, CME related learning and non-CME related learning. Right? You can do all the learnings. And I would venture to say that, you know, the educational and non-educational sessions that are CME versus non-CME are only one piece of the learning.

8:05 And sometimes what you go do is learn from the product theaters. I hear some people say, ugh, I want to have nothing to do with industry. But I have to tell you that our industry colleagues, they're ahead in many ways that, you know, you should just tap into, okay, don't accept a dinner or don't let them pay for your meal, whatever. Whatever helps you feel good and sleep at night. Well, you should go hang out and at least talk to them and talk to a couple, go to their booths. They've got some things that are a little bit cutting edge, right? I'll give an example and this may not impress you, but it definitely impressed me. Last year when I came to the animal meeting and I asked, oh yeah, give me your card.

8:50 All of them, I forget what company this was, they pull out their QR code and they're like, yeah, scan this QR code. That's my business card. I was like, are you kidding me? It's your business card? I was really super impressed because that was the first time I had seen this and they are all like, you know, I'm scanning all their QR codes. It's immediately popping into my phone. There's none of this, spell your name. Was that 910? None of that. It was just so seamless and so beautiful and they all did it. And there I was saying I don't have a card, but you know, I just wasn't there. So after that meeting, I went back and figured out how to do it. And so now I'm the cool kid on the blog going around sharing with people my QR code that gives them all my information on their phone without having to, you know, whip out a card the old fashioned way.

9:44 So that's just one example. There are many other things that you can learn from your industry colleagues that have nothing really to do with, you know, their drugs that they're trying to sell or their interventions that they're trying to get you to buy into. But it's just that there are people who are thinking about healthcare problems in a different way than you and there's always opportunities to learn from them. And I want to say one more thing about learning is, you know, the more you respect what other people have to share, what perspectives other people bring, the more you learn. And so I hope that in life and in academia, there's no one you feel like you can't learn from.

10:25 So definitely recognize that the Animal Meeting is about learning, but not just the traditional CME learning, but all sorts of learnings. And I hope that you take advantage of the opportunities to learn as much as you can. The third thing that the Animal Meeting is for is about taking time away. So yeah, perhaps you brought your family with you and that's okay. Or you didn't. I think many people come without their families. It's an opportunity to just be somewhere else, be in a different environment, be in a different space. And if you bring your whole family with you, great. You're all like having this experience away from your normal environment, which is always refreshing in some way.

11:07 But whether you come alone or you come with others, you're leaving your natural environment. And so it's a great opportunity to take time away. Yes, you are working to some extent. Yes, you are learning, but leave the email behind, leave all the charts behind, and really just enjoy the time. Enjoy the time away. Enjoy the mental space. Enjoy the mental break. So the Animal Meeting is really about an opportunity to take time away. And I hope that if you're at the Animal Meeting, and you know, especially if you don't have anything to present, make sure that you make the most of this time away. Don't go to the sessions that begin at 7am. I'm so glad that now everything is so, you know, it's available on demand.

11:53 And so don't wake up at 7am to go to the early morning session. Sleep in till 9 and then watch it at 2x the speed. You'll still retain all of it and you'll have gotten some more sleep. That's how you buy back time. It's so awesome. Okay, so it's about taking time away. Make the most of it. The fourth thing is that the Animal Meeting is about walking a lot. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of walking involved at the Animal Meeting. I don't know about you, but if it's a big enough meeting, it's a lot of walking. And I see that they have scooters too. So if you need a scooter, I'm glad that they have them for you. And if they don't, certainly something to bring before your Animal Meeting committee, because it absolutely, you know, should be available for people who need it.

12:39 But I will tell you that for many people, walking a lot is the order of the day. You know what? You've been struggling to make your steps counts. You've been struggling to exercise. So yeah, definitely do a lot of walking. And can I just put a plug in here for going to the gym at the hotel that you're at? So maybe you're good. You go to the gym all the time. But for everybody else who doesn't do that, wow, what an opportunity. You get to go to the gym, take advantage of it, go. There's a pool. It's heated. Wow. You know, just take advantage of it. You don't have to present the 7 a.m. poster. So yeah, do all the other stuff that you otherwise wouldn't be able to do, including doing a lot of walking and exercising.

13:22 All right. Yes, the Animal Meeting is about walking a lot, getting your steps in. Part five is that the Animal Meeting is about seeing the sights. You know, they always have these meetings at these amazing places that have a lot of stuff to do. And they schedule you from morning until night. When I was younger, I thought that meant you had to stay in the conference hotel the whole time and go nowhere while you tried to learn all the stuff that somehow wouldn't stay in your head. What I realized now is that it gives you the opportunity to choose a day, maybe a half a day, maybe even more than a day where you say, hey, I'm in this nice city that I frankly don't come to very often.

14:07 And I'm not sure when next I'm coming back here. Why don't I take a day and discover where I am? And I want to invite you if you've ever been in the space where you think you can't do that, please, please, please do it. It's at a special, wonderful location for a reason. It's supposed to be attractive and it's an opportunity, especially if you're not presenting an abstract for you to take advantage of learning. Don't let guilt keep you in your seat in the cold auditorium from morning until night punishing yourself for not coming with an abstract. Please take time away and say, haha, taking Monday off. This would have been the Monday that I would be presenting my abstract.

14:47 But no, I am going to see the sights of the town. Definitely make sure that you invest time in seeing the sights. Okay. The sixth thing is that the annual meeting is about gaining new ideas. And so I think that you are more relaxed when you don't have things to present, or you can just go around and say, how did they solve this problem? Oh, this is interesting. Okay, how did they do this? You look at the posters and you say, what were their methods? Huh, why did they choose to do it this way? You gave new ideas so that you can take it back to your program and make the most of it. So I would definitely recognize that the annual meeting is about gaining new ideas for your research and for your scholarship.

15:34 And number seven is that the annual meeting is about remembering why you're in academia, remembering why you're in academia. And, you know, sometimes we get lost. We get lost in the day to day. We get lost in the prior authorizations, the constant requests, the MyChart messages, the grant submissions, the manuscript submissions. We get lost and we forget about the big picture until we come to the meeting. And all of a sudden we see science moving forward. And it feels like there's an acceleration that takes place at the annual meeting. And it's a little bit of an optical illusion, or maybe we should call it a mind illusion. But it's that, you know, all the science has been going on all along, but we bring it all together.

16:17 We showcase it in different ways. And then all of a sudden we're like, my gosh, things are moving forward, gene therapy is here. Oh my gosh, gene editing is part of our therapies. It's really awesome. And it's just so inspiring. And seeing the work that people are doing and moving forward just reminds you why you're in academia, here to move the needle forward, here to really progress in your scholarship. So that even if you're not able to present an abstract this year, you're going to be able to do it a year from now, two years from now, and the data will have been worth the wait. It is so inspiring to be here. It is so inspiring to see the work that's happening, the excitement with which people are presenting their work, the hopes they have for the future, right?

17:01 Because they're not just presenting their science, they're presenting strategies for equity, in medicine, they're presenting strategies for mentoring people who are underrepresented in medicine or mentoring women or mentoring men, which, you know, I mean, a lot of different groups are underrepresented in medicine. And so just listening to all the ideas and all the things that people are sharing is so, so, so inspiring. And it reminds me that I'm here. I'm here because I want to be. I'm here because I choose to be. And I hope that you also take time to connect to the annual meeting in such a way that you are able to recognize and remember why you came.

17:45 And remember why you put up with all the stuff you put up with so that you can advance in a different way. Yeah. All right. So those are the reasons. Those are the things to think about so that you can be okay with having nothing to present at your annual meeting. Now, I can't tell you that you'll take these seven points to your mentors and they'll say, oh, yeah, I'm patting you on the back. Well done. You have no abstract to present. I can't say that they're going to be excited for you, but I think it's important for you to recognize the value of the annual meeting beyond just presenting an abstract. And I hope that as you move into a mentor role, and you probably already are in a mentor role, you'll cut your trainees some slack and you won't require that they have to have a poster before they can go to the annual meeting.

18:33 I think it's a worthy goal. Wow. Many a poster has been strung together just to make it to the meeting. And I think it's okay to encourage people that going to the meeting is valuable even when you have nothing to present. So those seven things were remembering that the annual meeting is about connecting. It's about learning. It's about taking time away. It's about a lot of walking and exercise. It's about seeing the sights, getting new ideas, and remembering your why in academia. All right. It's been a pleasure to talk with you today. Thank you for listening. Have a great rest of your day. And I look forward to talking with you again the next time.

19:18 Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor. If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself. Someone else needs to hear it. So take a minute right now and share it. As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do health