Promoting diversity, addressing disparities: CHEST 2022 chair recounts top takeaways

Among the top takeaways from the CHEST 2022 Annual Meeting, held Oct. 16 to 19 in Nashville, Tennessee, were diversity in content and speakers, addressing disparities and new initiatives, according to Subani Chandra, MD, FCCP.

Healio spoke with Chandra, the scientific program committee chair for CHEST 2022 and associate professor of medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, after the meeting to highlight her main takeaways from this year’s first in-person meeting after 3 years.

Diversity

When creating this meeting and accepting submissions, Chandra said the scientific program committee highly valued diversity and, in turn, diversity was present in every session at the meeting.

“This was the most diverse CHEST meeting we've had not just in the topics, but also in terms of the speakers and how the material was presented,” Chandra told Healio. “There was gender diversity, geographic diversity, diversity in terms of experience and type of provider, and diversity across multiple disciplinaries. Sessions also thoughtfully included information about identifying and understanding disparities and mitigating their impact”

According to Chandra, this focus on diversity seamlessly blended into one of the guiding principles of the meeting, which was to make sure everybody attending felt valued and part of a community.

“This feeling was so important to create, both in terms of the space and the means for people to be able to experience that, to know that they and their work is valued and has meaning,” Chandra said. “We put a lot of thought into the entire meeting experience so that there was something for everyone, whatever being part of a community meant to each person. We focused on what people learned, what activities they could participate in, what their experience would be like and even how attendees were welcomed into the convention hall and how easily accessible CHEST leadership and staff were so that people always had someone to turn to and knew where to go if they had a question, comment or feedback. That visibility and accessibility undergirded the entire experience of the meeting.”

Chandra also told Healio that the creation of such a successful and diverse meeting is in part thanks to their “edutainment,” or education-plus-entertainment, events.

From CHEST Challenge, a Jeopardy-style national competition for teams of fellows, to CHEST After Hours, an evening for music, art and stories, Chandra said these exciting and enriching events created an inclusive learning environment.

“Since we were in Nashville, we had live music breaks,” Chandra said. “I saw so many people taking one of the chairs in the hallway to listen to someone playing live music. It is wonderful to slow down when you feel like you are always running, because it's just so beautiful.”

Bringing attention to disparities

In addition to promoting diversity, focusing on and bringing attention to disparities was a major topic at this year’s meeting. Chandra told Healio that many presenters addressed disparities in their research.

“Every scientific clinical topic spoke to differences, how to mitigate disparities or what to be aware of,” she said.

According to Chandra, sessions on women’s health were not only helpful but also very popular among attendees.

“Women's health was a very central issue at the meeting and has been across our entire country,” Chandra said. “Various sessions spoke on how it affects our patients and what we need to know and do to support our patients as pulmonary, critical care and sleep physicians.”

New events, initiatives

There were several new events at CHEST 2022, such as one developed by the journal CHEST that Chandra described as incredibly successful.

“The journal [CHEST] launched a new series where they invited lead authors from practice-changing articles in three different areas of pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine,” Chandra said. “Those were phenomenal because in 1 hour you could hear not just from leading experts, but you could get a digest of what's new in the literature and how to use that in patient care.”

Chandra told Healio that attendees of this series learned the answers to several questions, such as, “How does this study apply to your field,” “What are the nuances of interpreting this study,” and “How do you make sure you’re providing the latest and best cutting-edge medicine to every patient?”

In terms of initiatives, two new programs, Bridging Specialties: Timely Diagnosis for ILD Patients and First 5 Minutes, were a key focus at this year’s meeting, according to Chandra.

“Bridging Specialties focuses on bringing together experts from pulmonary and primary care to shorten the time to diagnosis for interstitial lung diseases like pulmonary fibrosis,” Chandra said. “First 5 Minutes stems from a listening tour that CHEST did in various underserved communities after those first initial months of COVID in which we learned what patients need from providers. What helps patients trust various health care providers and their medical care really centers around communication and building that trust in the first 5 minutes of an interaction.

“This is an initiative that CHEST is really spearheading to be something we do across the country and across the world,” Chandra added.

After such a lively and engaging meeting, Chandra is looking forward to another in-person event next year at CHEST 2023.

“I’m so incredibly proud of the work of the 2022 team, and I know that CHEST 2023 is going to build on the energy from CHEST 2022, so I’m very excited,” Chandra said.

For more information:

Subani Chandra, MD, FCCP, can be reached at sc3328@cumc.columbia.edu.

References:

• CHEST. First 5 Minutes. https://www.chestnet.org/Learning-and-Events/First-5-Minutes.
• CHEST. Bridging Specialties. https://www.chestnet.org/Guidelines-and-Topic-Collections/Bridging-Specialties/Timely-Diagnosis-for-ILD-Patients.