I stopped paying for professional society membership as soon as I finished training. The ABP already makes me eat it with their board fees; I feel. I no need to give the AAP all my money, even though I generally support their causes and efforts.
I've been bringing my wife and 1-2 kids to national conferences intermittently since fellowship; so far have taken them to Vancouver, DC, Boston, & San Fran. I spend a reasonable amount of time at the conferences but still make time to explore the city with family. In academia I have to go to these to present research or maintain some academic relationships, and I find some of the info genuinely interesting. I've never ditched a conference -- I would feel unethical and guilty.
But it's hard for us to make time to travel to these cities with work and young children, so a conference is a great opportunity to bring them. I've used credit card rewards for most of the family costs.
-
working on turning them into mini-vacays with my wife
We did that twice last year. Once to San Francisco. Once to Maui. Bought her tickets with credit card bonus points for trying new cards.Leave a comment:
-
one of the many benefits of academia: i get sent to 2 of these a year, all expenses paid, and no one is checking to see what i do.
i go to lots of sessions and usually learn a lot. last one i did that all morning then took a long run and laid by the pool.
social aspect is critical for those in academia.
working on turning them into mini-vacays with my wife. she'll have to pay for her own plane ticket but the resort hotel doesn't really care if it's just me in the room or me+her.Leave a comment:
-
Conferences are decent way to learn some stuff but a great way to catch an out of town sporting event or concert.Leave a comment:
-
… Never tried to buy my own ribbons, but it seems like you can get them made for cheap:
I could have fun with that!
"Past Meeting Ditchee"
"Published Nothing"
"Sits in the Back"
"Happy Hour Yet?"
"Made You Look!"
Cheers!
-PoFLeave a comment:
-
There are numerous avenues in modern day to keep up with knowledge. I even question whether being a member of the major societies is worth it anymore.
.Leave a comment:
-
I thing big conferences are not beneficial. In my subspecialty practice, there are 7 of us. Only the 70 yo plus partner goes to the national 4 day meeting.
We have at least 5 tumor boards a week and very active clinical trial program. We are in community based practice.
We get tons of CME.
Can't justify taking that much time off for a travel meeting
National meetings are best for academics and senior attendings whose lifestyle traditionally favored the annual gatherings. There are numerous avenues in modern day to keep up with knowledge.
I even question whether being a member of the major societies is worth it anymore.
Leave a comment:
-
The ribbons do make me laugh. Since I refuse to wear them, it feels like when I take my kid to an entitled-child event and pull up in my beater car amongst all the fancy Porsche, Benz and BMW SUV's (driven by very well dressed/groomed people while I'm in my tattered (redneck?) garb) and I get that look like, "Oh, poor thing...it's so nice to have economically disadvantaged folks come and add diversity to our gathering!" I probably instigate it to a degree because I revel in that "Big hat, no cattle" paradigm....Leave a comment:
-
I love seeing the guy with 8 ribbons below his name badge to mock the people who put ribbons below their name badge.
I regularly attend dental conferences with my wife. She occasionally goes to estate planning and tax conferences with me. (Odd hobbies, I’m sure, but it helps that we both enjoy developments in the other’s career field. Plus there are free drinks and appetizers.)
Back in March we went to a conference that we’ve attended in years past. For whatever reason we didn’t get the “past participant”, “presenter”, “VIP member” ribbons that we should have based on past participation and standing in the organization. Not a big deal, but you chat with colleagues who have the same bling and went to last year’s meeting and see that the ribbons can be a crapshoot.
Anyone have link to where I can get some of those conference ribbons custom made? I’m thinking a half dozen with titles like “Found this One on the Floor”, “33 and a Third Degree Grand Poobah”, “Fight Club”, and “Extra Free Drinks” might be kind of useful for the next national conference. Gaudy colors like chartreuse, hot pink, and orange would be all the better. Perhaps something with plaid and gold leaf…
Never tried to buy my own ribbons, but it seems like you can get them made for cheap:
http://www.pcnametag.com/product/2332/badge-ribbon-custom
-WSPLeave a comment:
-
I love seeing the guy with 8 ribbons below his name badge to mock the people who put ribbons below their name badge.
I regularly attend dental conferences with my wife. She occasionally goes to estate planning and tax conferences with me. (Odd hobbies, I’m sure, but it helps that we both enjoy developments in the other’s career field. Plus there are free drinks and appetizers.)
Back in March we went to a conference that we’ve attended in years past. For whatever reason we didn’t get the “past participant”, “presenter”, “VIP member” ribbons that we should have based on past participation and standing in the organization. Not a big deal, but you chat with colleagues who have the same bling and went to last year’s meeting and see that the ribbons can be a crapshoot.
Anyone have link to where I can get some of those conference ribbons custom made? I’m thinking a half dozen with titles like “Found this One on the Floor”, “33 and a Third Degree Grand Poobah”, “Fight Club”, and “Extra Free Drinks” might be kind of useful for the next national conference. Gaudy colors like chartreuse, hot pink, and orange would be all the better. Perhaps something with plaid and gold leaf…
Who knew so many high-income professionals are funny? Also see q-school's icon.Leave a comment:
-
I love seeing the guy with 8 ribbons below his name badge to mock the people who put ribbons below their name badge.
I regularly attend dental conferences with my wife. She occasionally goes to estate planning and tax conferences with me. (Odd hobbies, I'm sure, but it helps that we both enjoy developments in the other's career field. Plus there are free drinks and appetizers.)
Back in March we went to a conference that we've attended in years past. For whatever reason we didn't get the "past participant", "presenter", "VIP member" ribbons that we should have based on past participation and standing in the organization. Not a big deal, but you chat with colleagues who have the same bling and went to last year's meeting and see that the ribbons can be a crapshoot.
Anyone have link to where I can get some of those conference ribbons custom made? I'm thinking a half dozen with titles like "Found this One on the Floor", "33 and a Third Degree Grand Poobah", "Fight Club", and "Extra Free Drinks" might be kind of useful for the next national conference. Gaudy colors like chartreuse, hot pink, and orange would be all the better. Perhaps something with plaid and gold leaf...Leave a comment:
-
I love going to conferences. I try to attend two a year. I learn a bunch and obviously nice to run into friends. Usually attend the big one in early spring and a smaller/local one. Sometimes I’ll go to 3/year. Benefits? Lots of derm therapy is off-label and new treatments/pearls are coming out. I think I’d get really dated if I stopped.
The # of conferences has proliferated for every speciality — outside of the big name ones for peds, I’m not sure what else I should go to other than ones focused on teaching me something specific. I can do peds EM cruise conferences etc now if I wanted.
The one I just went to was the biggest peds conference (as far as I know) — just attending the peds EM stuff would have taken up almost the entire conference without having a chance to go to lectures/workshops from a single other topic.
It’s hard for me to travel to more than 2x/year with our kids being so young, but I also want to make sure I am not wasting my time when I do go, so I end up sticking with the big ones I’ve heard a lot about, though I probably would benefit by going to some more “obscure” (to me) ones instead.
I look for general med derm confs vs cosmetic/surgical focused. It's well known which are the "good" ones so I don't waste my time going to a "bad" one.
Although I did attend one earlier this year that I wasn't that pleased with, but I sorta knew that going in, but went away since it was in Hawaii
.
I practice general dermatology and hospital based dermatology so I attend the nerdy med derm talks mainly.
Leave a comment:
-
I love seeing the guy with 8 ribbons below his name badge to mock the people who put ribbons below their name badge.Leave a comment:
-
Too expensive. From where I live, I have to devote two travel days. I have significant lost income. I have a tiny CME budget.
I can learn a lot on social media. i read journals. I talk to friends. I know at this point in my career I can't be expert at everything, so I try to be really good at knowing what I know. Referring to younger colleagues is a blessing I have now.
I went to the rogue blog.
I don't know what alt-brown means in the title section.
I don't think 37 is middle age. I stopped reading, so I don't know what the other two thousand words are. Apologies if these are covered there.
I felt like I couldn't relate to whatever the kids are talking about these days.Leave a comment:
-
I love going to conferences. I try to attend two a year. I learn a bunch and obviously nice to run into friends. Usually attend the big one in early spring and a smaller/local one. Sometimes I’ll go to 3/year. Benefits? Lots of derm therapy is off-label and new treatments/pearls are coming out. I think I’d get really dated if I stopped.
The # of conferences has proliferated for every speciality -- outside of the big name ones for peds, I'm not sure what else I should go to other than ones focused on teaching me something specific. I can do peds EM cruise conferences etc now if I wanted.
The one I just went to was the biggest peds conference (as far as I know) -- just attending the peds EM stuff would have taken up almost the entire conference without having a chance to go to lectures/workshops from a single other topic.
It's hard for me to travel to more than 2x/year with our kids being so young, but I also want to make sure I am not wasting my time when I do go, so I end up sticking with the big ones I've heard a lot about, though I probably would benefit by going to some more "obscure" (to me) ones instead.Leave a comment:
Leave a comment: