Every so often, I get a nice snapshot of why we do what we do as an industry, and as a specialty supplier within the industry. I’ve had several in the last 10 days.
Last week, Margot Cragg, Emily MacKinnon and I were onsite with a team of local writers at the 13th World Conference on Lung Cancer in San Francisco. As we gathered content for our daily tabloid, we realized we had reconnected with the global community of lung cancer researchers and clinicians at a crucial moment.
This year’s conference marked the introduction of a new system for assessing the severity and anticipating the future course of different types of lung tumours. The impact will be huge: under the new staging system, a lung cancer patient who visits an oncologist today might hear different treatment recommendations than s/he would have received last month. And one in six patients will see better results from the new treatment plan.
With more than 6,000 participants onsite, the biennial WCLC was an opportunity to deliver a timely, life-saving message to a committed global audience. Our newspaper was used to tell the story, repeatedly and in-depth, and to advertise the staging manual, handbook, and reference cards that were available for sale in the exhibition booth.
Look no farther for the breakthrough impact of a timely, well-organized, face-to-face meeting. If I believed in such things, I would tell you that somewhere, my mother is smiling that one in six lung cancer patients can now look forward to better outcomes.
But that wasn’t the only snapshot of note.
One of my favourite moments on a conference newspaper is the daily trek out to the hallways or the exhibit floor to talk to perfect strangers. We approach random participants with a daily question, thank them profusely when they don’t turn their backs, and quote their comments to capture the tone of the conference and the issues bubbling up from the floor.
At this conference, a participant from Wales put it all in perspective.
“I’m interested in the sessions that focus on the patient experience, on how we take this clinical data and apply it to the patient journey in lung cancer,” he said.
But “the other thing that’s great is the opportunity to meet professional colleagues and exchange ideas. It’s usually from this kind of networking and exchange and meeting of the minds that the next clinical trial is born.”
The next clinical trial. That would be the one that could lead to a major medical breakthrough, demonstrating the impact of a drug, device, or treatment that can save or improve lives.
What’s that we were saying about the ROI of meetings and events?
One of our local freelancers, medical and regulatory writer Mitch Gordon, summed up the sense of the moment.
“I’m stumbling toward the local coffee shop. I suddenly see all these people from Germany and Sweden looking very intent, and I realize that’s going to be my work day,” he told us. “This is old hat to you guys, but the idea of picking up the newsletter the morning it was produced and realizing I’m a part of the team that produced it . . . ”
That’s the sense of ROI that is hard to measure but impossible to ignore, every time we cover a conference that has a clear sense of purpose.
A word of thanks…
…to MeetingsNet Web Editor Sue Pelletier, intrepid author of the inimitable Face2Face blog, for listing The Edge in her blog roll late last week.
And an absence alert . . .
. . .The Edge might be a quiet place over the next couple of weeks, with a few of us grabbing some down time before a very busy season starts up in September.