This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Endocrine Society highlights cutting-edge science, patient voices at centennial meeting
The Endocrine Society’s annual meeting turns 100 this year, and organizers are incorporating several new additions to popular sessions on everything from reproductive and metabolic health to diabetes, obesity and transgender medicine.
ENDO 2018, the Endocrine Society’s 100th Annual Meeting & Expo, will bring approximately 8,000 society members to Chicago from March 17 to 20 to hear from global experts in the field and connect with peers. This year’s schedule includes more than 300 sessions in 24 tracks and more than 2,000 posters, along with special symposia, debates and popular “meet the experts” opportunities.
“ENDO is still the premier meeting,” John Newell-Price, PhD, FRCP, chair of endocrinology and an honorary consultant physician at the University of Sheffield, U.K., and chair of the annual meeting’s steering committee, told Endocrine Today. “It has such a breadth of clinical, basic and practical science and medicine. It means that someone can come to this meeting and it really doesn’t matter if they are a basic scientist or clinician-scientist or a clinician in practice — there will be something for them to go to all day every day. This meeting will provide them with a fabulous update of the science and practice of endocrinology.”
This year’s meeting will offer attendees an expanded focus on guidelines, themed presidential plenary sessions and a concerted effort to include patient voices in several key sessions.
“I’m interested in pushing the envelope of not having people just check off boxes, but focusing more on retaining the creativity and thoughtfulness that is a fundamental part of being a physician and provider,” Ann Danoff, MD, chief of medical service at the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center in Philadelphia and the meeting’s clinical chair, told Endocrine Today. “We have bread-and-butter sessions and then some esoteric things also. It’s important that we don’t water down the profession. We need to maintain not just the breadth, but the depth of our understanding.”
Some of this year’s meeting highlights include:
Plenary sessions: This year’s presidential plenary, “Translating Basic Discovery into Reproductive Health,” taking place Saturday, March 17, will explore future directions for male contraception and the discovery of levonorgestrel-only emergency contraception. Other plenary topics will explore the link between circadian rhythms and metabolic disease, the role of kisspeptin in menopausal symptoms and how salt and water balance influences why people eat what they eat. “I started as a trainee in 1983 and I have the best memories of fabulous plenaries that really changed the way I see the world,” Danoff said. “Just unbelievable insight into how we work as human beings. I so encourage people to go to the plenaries.”
Early career opportunities: This year’s Early Career Forum, taking place Friday, March 16, includes a full day of events for fellows and trainees, including sessions on how to get the most out of a meeting, clinical and research career options, job search tips, interview skills and negotiation techniques. “We’re anticipating about 200 trainees,” Danoff said. “They’ll have an opportunity to meet with experts in the field. The Endocrine Society really steps up to the plate and provides that experience.”
Science Pathways: The popular “Science Pathways” sessions return this year, including sessions grouped within specific topics to allow an easy-to-follow lineup. This year’s science pathways, running throughout the meeting, are focused on the development and origins of health and disease, hormone-dependent cancers, obesity and metabolism, and nuclear receptors.
Guideline deep dives: This year, there will be two guideline presentations, including testosterone therapy in men with hypogonadism and the endocrine treatment of gender incongruence. Both will be presented in a case-based format, Danoff said, with members of the respective guideline committees serving as panelists, who will be addressing areas of uncertainty and points in which it was difficult to reach consensus. In addition, “Beyond the Guidelines” sessions will feature expert panels discussing recently released guidelines and patients with challenging cases in osteoporosis, indeterminant thyroid nodules and prolactinoma.
Patient voices: Steering committee members made deliberate attempts to incorporate more patient voices into certain sessions, including a symposium on transgender children and adolescents, a meet-the-professor session discussing diabetes and the athlete, and a session on genetics and inherited endocrinopathies. “Patient voices are very powerful,” Newell-Price said. “The more that happens, the better.”
This year’s meeting also offers ways for attendees to earn maintenance of certification by attending the preconference workshop sessions, practice guideline sessions and other select sessions.
“We have some fun things,” Newell-Price said. “Particularly with sessions like, ‘Mission to Mars: Will our fertility survive interplanetary space travel and colonization?’ It’s a fun topic, but it is based on the science behind some aspects of fertility. Hopefully, these things will capture people’s imaginations.”
The Endocrine Today and Healio.com staff will provide coverage from ENDO 2018, including reports on the sessions described above and others, onsite video interviews and much more. For more information on the ENDO agenda and registration, visit www.endocrine.org/endo-2018. – by Regina Schaffer
Disclosures: Danoff and Newell-Price report no relevant financial disclosures.