Congresses give you time to discuss research with colleagues outside your own department. That is a good reason to attend. It also leaves a practical question: how do you keep up between meetings?

What a congress offers

There's something valuable about discussing a paper with the person who wrote it. You can ask about a result, challenge an interpretation, or hear how another surgeon approaches the same clinical problem.

A conference program also shows you what its organizers consider worth discussing. You may leave with questions you would never have thought to search for.

For a surgeon who sets aside time to attend, a congress can provide a useful focus for learning. We think that deserves a place alongside shorter sessions during the working week.

What happens between meetings

A program that covers a whole specialty will not answer every question from your practice. You still need a way to find relevant work after the congress ends.

There is also the time and cost of attending. Travel has an environmental cost, too. Gattrell and colleagues modeled attendance by one pharmaceutical company's staff and guests at four medical congresses. Travel accounted for 91% to 96% of their estimated in-person emissions. That is a finding about those attendees, not a footprint for every doctor or congress.

These are reasons to weigh the value of each meeting. They are not a reason to give up the conversations that make attending worthwhile.

Learning through the rest of the year

We see short, focused sessions as a way to keep learning between congresses. They can help you return to a clinical question without waiting for the next meeting.

That is what we're building at Keendoc. Every week, we email you the new sessions for your field.

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