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Focus on the future: AACE to showcase latest technology, innovations at annual meeting
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“Charting the future” is the theme for this year’s American Association for Clinical Endocrinologists annual meeting, and organizers have put together a forward-looking program that will highlight high-tech innovations and cutting-edge research, as well as a special focus on guidance for early-career endocrinologists.
AACE’s 27th Annual Scientific and Clinical Congress will bring approximately 3,000 attendees from 54 countries to the Hynes Convention Center in Bostin from May 16 to 20 to hear from experts in the field and connect with peers. This year’s schedule includes nearly 70 sessions, as well as pre-congress sessions and more than 500 posters over 5 days, along with special symposia and meet-the-expert sessions.
“AACE focuses on the practice of clinical endocrinology,” Vin Tangpricha, MD, PhD, FACE, professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology, diabetes and lipids at Emory University School of Medicine, program director of the Emory Endocrinology Fellowship Program and program chair for the AACE annual meeting, told Endocrine Today. “The majority of people who come to this meeting see endocrine patients, and all of our topics are focused on improving endocrine care of patients. Not to say we don’t focus on research, but we focus on research that will impact our patients.”
This year’s meeting will include several new additions that build on the 2018 theme of charting the future, Tangpricha said, including an all-day, “meeting-within-a-meeting” thyroid cancer symposium on Friday, co-sponsored by the American Head & Neck Society, that will include expert speakers, case-based presentations and a game show-style review.
“We’ve never done something like this before, an all-day focus on thyroid cancer,” Tangpricha said. “We’re promoting this throughout the surgical community as well as in the local community. People can come and register for that 1-day meeting or stay for the whole meeting.”
Other highlights from this year’s meeting program will include the following:
Pre-congress events taking place Wednesday, May 17, will feature sessions on managing diabetes as a cardiovascular disease, advanced bone disease, the practice of obesity medicine, reproductive endocrinology in endocrine practice and the return of the popular diabetes technology showcase. “People who are new to this or scared of technology, this session gives them a chance to interact with the devices,” Tangpricha said. “The key highlight is being able to rotate through all these tables, and we have all the major device companies there.”
Satellite symposia on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will include sessions on guideline-based treatment approaches to hypoparathyroidism, emerging roles for SGLT1 and SGLT2 inhibitors in type 1 diabetes, and CV risk reduction in patients with diabetes.
This year’s meeting will include a special series of sessions for fellows focused on developing an endocrine career, including understanding RVUs and MACRA, getting a first job and how to survive the first year of practice. “This is something we are doing based on feedback we have received over the past few years that there wasn’t something for the fellows,” Tangpricha said. “So, we have a session on Friday afternoon with topics including how to choose your first job, how to avoid burnout and how to negotiate that will be given by senior AACE members.”
New this year is a “Meet the Masters” college breakfast, taking place Saturday, May 19, from 6:30 to 8 a.m. at the Hynes Convention Center. The event is designed to honor and celebrate Master of the American College of Endocrinology (MACE) honorees. Attendees will have the opportunity to engage with MACE members and discuss cases, Tangpricha said. This is a ticketed event and limited to pre-registered attendees.
Featured plenary speakers this year will include C. Ronald Kahn, MD, chief academic officer and past president of the Joslin Diabetes Center and the Mary K. Iacocca Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, who will explore the intersection of genetics, diet and gut microbiota, and Andrew F. Stewart, MD, director of the Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who will speak about beta-cell regeneration, and Ashok Balasubramanyam, MD, professor of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, who will speak about his work with the NIH on difficult-to-solve medical cases through the NIH’s Undiagnosed Diseases Network.
The Endocrine Today and Healio.com staff will provide coverage from AACE2018, including reports on the sessions, onsite video interviews and much more. For more information on the AACE agenda and registration, visit www.am.aace.com. – by Regina Schaffer