Annual AACE meeting celebrates 30 years with all-virtual format
The American Association of Clinical Endocrinology will open its 30th annual meeting this year with an all-virtual format, offering attendees new opportunities to learn about the latest cutting-edge science and advances in clinical care.
This year’s annual meeting, Envision, taking place Wednesday through Saturday, will offer 4 days of educational programming across six disease states, including plenary sessions, expert panel discussions, a virtual abstract program with e-posters and more than 86 hours of CME, nursing and pharmacy credits.
Organizers also promise “zero boring lectures.”
“There is a ton of exciting content this year,” Elizabeth N. Pearce, MD, MSc, professor of medicine in the section of endocrinology, diabetes and nutrition at Boston University School of Medicine and the AACE program chair, told Healio. “The meeting may be virtual, but people will find it enjoyable, welcoming and will also learn. This is a broad meeting and it is purely clinical. It will cover the waterfront of endocrine topics, but all in a clinically relevant fashion.”
Attendees include medical professionals from the field of clinical endocrinology at all stages in their career: clinical endocrinologists, general practitioners, nurse practitioners, nurses, allied health professionals, medical students, residents and fellows in training.
“It is all about clinical endocrinology, and it is broad,” David C. Lieb, MD, FACE, FACP, associate professor of internal medicine and program director of the endocrinology and metabolism fellowship program at Eastern Virginia Medical School, and chair of the AACE Education Oversight Committee, told Healio. “Several meetings that we all participate in have a basic science research component, or a focus on diabetes or thyroid, for example. This meeting offers something for everyone, so it is a nice comprehensive meeting that is focused on clinical care.”
There is no overall theme for this year’s meeting; however, organizers said there will be several sessions highlighting health care disparities.
“Although it is not a formal theme of the meeting, there will be a number of sessions that deal with this,” Pearce said. “There will also be an important conversation about what AACE is doing around diversity, equity and inclusion overall from the task force chair.”
This year will also offer several sessions on COVID-19 across the six disease state networks, Pearce said, along with several ways to connect virtually with fellow attendees.
“There are some opportunities that come with a virtual meeting, even though we are disappointed that we can’t see each other in person,” Pearce said. “One of those is we have more talks than we could fit in a brick-and-mortar space. It is an enormous amount of content that we probably could not have managed at an in-person meeting. This format also allows us to more prominently feature patient voices, which might have been more difficult with a meeting that required travel.”
This year’s virtual meeting will also include interactive polls, live games like “diabetes and dragons” and “game of hormones,” and an endocrine “scavenger hunt” for fellows, in addition to live Q&A sessions with presenters, Lieb said.
“Any questions not answered during the live Q&A will be answered afterward,” Lieb said. “Usually, that isn’t possible at an in-person meeting. We also have three virtual games on Thursday that are fun and interactive, with winners for each.”
Highlights from this year’s meeting program include the following (all times Eastern Daylight Time):
- Tait Shanafelt, MD, of Stanford University School of Medicine, will present the keynote address, “Organizational Efforts to Cultivate Health Care Professional Well-being: Before and After the COVID-19 Pandemic,” on Wednesday at 11:15 a.m.
- In honor of the 100th anniversary of the discovery of insulin, Gary Lewis, MD, of the University of Toronto will present “The Discovery of Insulin Revisited: Lessons for the Modern Era” on Wednesday at 12:30 p.m.
- Connie B. Newman, MD, of New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s AACE Women’s Leadership Session, taking place Wednesday at 6 p.m.
- A late-breaking session led by George Grunberger, MD, FACP, MACE, of the Grunberger Diabetes Institute, and Jennifer Sherr, MD, PhD, of Yale School of Medicine, will highlight a new clinical practice guideline on the use of advanced technology in the management of people with diabetes on Friday at 10 a.m.
“I am excited with how this touches on every aspect of endo and patient care,” Lieb said. “There really is something for everyone. Even though it is virtual, AACE has done a great job of making this meeting as personable as possible.”
The Endocrine Today and Healio.com staff will provide coverage of AACE 2021, including reports on the sessions, video interviews and much more. For more information on the AACE agenda and registration, visit https://pro.aace.com/events/2021/annual-meeting.
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