#ACR21 postscript: Attending meetings is easier ‘away from home’
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A very long 20 months ago, I never would have predicted that we would have held our second virtual American College of Rheumatology meeting in a row, but as they say, it’s “been here and gone.”
I have talked to many folks and, to a person, they all told me how exhausting the meeting was. This includes people who gave a ton of presentations and were churning out social media tweets and interviews, but also people who were just trying to take the meeting in as registrants. I thought this was odd and wanted to share few thoughts on our virtual lives at the end of year 2 of our COVID-19 world.
One thing was plain to me in terms of the work effort to take in this meeting: It’s easier to do it when you are away from home. For the past 4 decades, I have gone to every single ACR and literally disappeared from my house for 5 or 6 days at a time. After a while, my wife expected it and, at the minimum, it was predictable. When my kids were little, I missed too many Halloweens to win the “Best Dad” award and, at other times, missed my daughter’s birthday, which was in the same week.
In the virtual world, not only are you home but you are actually living your life unless you were staying in a hotel room somewhere. Trying to take in the 7:30 a.m. study group, catch some posters, the plenary and a Community Hub while also being a responsible adult, cohabitating with your significant other and possibly children – who generally don’t appreciate the nuances and intellectual symmetries of the ACR meeting – is a dangerous brew. It’s hard to believe that non-rheumatologists don’t find the same poetry that many of us do in our meeting experience. I am making light of all of this, of course, but attending a meeting while being a responsible practitioner, spouse, parent or any other designation is tough.
In the virtual world, I also missed the one thing that everyone, except for a few misanthropes, seems to agree upon: The pleasure of fellow humanity. Old friends, new acquaintances, old and new trainees, friends in industry and others were all missed in our virtual meeting. I am sorry, but online chat just does not work for me as I have developed a mounting anti-virtual environment immune response that is losing self-tolerance.
However, on the plus side, and I have commented on this in the past, taking in the big meetings – whether live, virtual or hybrid – will not be possible for me again without constant guidance from the trustworthy clan of Twitter masters that our profession has grown. Zen masters of social media, such as Drs. Jean Liew (@rheum_cat), Kathryn Dao (aka The DoaIndex @KDAO2011) and Richard Conway (@RichardPAConway), have somehow found a way to think, write, listen and talk all at the same time. Thanks to you all!
For the non-social media types, I urge you to try it for the meetings alone. As I have said in the past, by following the discourse on Twitter (#ACR21) you can feel the meeting actually move under your feet.
Next year in Philly, as they say, I guess. I will guarantee that, at the minimum, we will be a hybrid meeting of some sort; the one thing our virtual platform did enable was for many people to attend who could not otherwise have done so under any circumstance. Congrats to the ACR team and hopefully see you – and, by that, I mean a non-pixelated version – next year.
What was your take on #ACR21? Share your experience at calabrl@ccf.org or at rheumatology@healio.com.
- For more information:
- Leonard H. Calabrese, DO, is the Chief Medical Editor, Healio Rheumatology, and Professor of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, and RJ Fasenmyer Chair of Clinical Immunology at the Cleveland Clinic.
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