Reflections from an In-person Medical Meeting

By Joyce Paschall, CAE, CMP-HC, CMM | Associate Executive Director, Education and Engagement, American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine

If I told you a few months ago that we were planning a fully in-person annual meeting this summer, you might think we would scale the event back to its bare essentials. For a medical meeting serving a specialised physician audience, this would mean laser-like focus on core education, scientific research and coveted community interaction. You might also likely assume that we would again forego new concepts we had planned to unveil in 2020, such as enhanced stage production and an on-premises surgical lab. You could even surmise a reduction to the overall footprint and schedule.

As you have surely guessed, we did not employ those streamlining practices. In fact, we broadened the meeting. We expanded the audience to embrace related organisations whose own meetings were canceled earlier in the year. We added a full day of pre-meeting programming for an industry consortium, invited an underrepresented subgroup to hold their governance and educational content inside our shell, and dramatically elevated our production value for key sessions. We brought in the mobile surgical lab.

And most expansively, we combined our programme content and group activities with a closely related organisation, blending it all into a Combined Annual Meeting. (This combination arrangement succeeded thanks to a variety of factors including mutual respect, sturdy legal assignment of responsibilities and a clear hierarchy for decision-making – but that’s a topic for another day.)

Significant additional lifts under normal circumstances, these expansions were magnified by circumstances changing like quicksand under our feet until about six weeks out when situations and local regulations stabilised. At that point we accelerated to absolute warp speed in an instant, relying on unknown local staffing situations and supply chain uncertainties while clinging to our trusted service partners, our exceptional professional team and mustering sheer grit to get it all done. Thanks to a visionary and encouraging CEO and a right-for-the-moment board President, we did it! All of it! Somehow! And survived the utter exhaustion to tell the story! 

In fact, our meeting (held 7-11 July in Nashville, Tennessee) went very smoothly, with an all-time high of over 1,600 professional attendees and about 3,000 total participants including exhibitor personnel, staff, service team members, and attendee spouses and guests. Most suppliers and venues were able to meet and, in many cases, exceed our expectations, with only a few exceptions. One local caterer was not well-prepared and had frustrating and illogical service alterations “due to COVID…”, and one private venue delivered a disappointing experience. Of the six hotels we used, all had limited housekeeping service, generally every third day, and all offered only minimal – if any – room service meals. Key service providers for audio-visual and production, exhibit services and the convention centre functioned at the highest level we could have imagined, as if they had not been on reduced staffing or managing all sorts of other difficulties for the prior 15 months. And all were deeply grateful to be able to come back to life in an in-person, live meeting, 3-D setting. The joy of this was palpable.

We did not require masks, though we did retain distanced seating arrangements in most spaces and retained adjustments made to reduce physical touchpoints wherever possible, including eliminating badge ribbons, reducing handout materials and widening exhibit aisles. A minuscule number of fully vaccinated participants informed us that they developed mild symptoms upon returning home and tested positive. We recognise there could be more who either didn’t get tested due to the mildness or lack of symptoms or simply didn’t inform us. None of our staff or service providers, who were in very close proximity to each other for several days, had any hint of illness.

In the true spirit of reflection, as I write this one month post-meeting, we’re beginning to feel that we hit a sweet spot of viability for holding our event fully in person, somewhere between “yay, things are opening up and getting back to normal” and “hey, what’s up with this variant and what does it mean for meetings?” If it had been one month later, we might have had to pivot (or, as I like to call it, swivel) yet again.

About Joyce

Joyce Paschall, CAE, CMP-HC, CMM, is responsible for content strategy, development and execution for educational events for the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine (AOSSM) based in Rosemont, IL, USA.

A CMP since 1990, Joyce has over 30 years of experience as an association executive and meeting director. She’s a long-time, active member of many industry organizations and served as president of the Chicago Area Chapter of MPI in 2007-2008. She currently serves on the CAE Commission for ASAE and on the EIC Knowledge Committee. She loves what she does for pay but her true joy comes from volunteering as a foster home for senior dogs, particularly beagles.