When we started 2020, we were eagerly anticipating what was set to be our busiest year to date, chock full of exciting face-to-face events with both old and new clients. Unfortunately, 2020 had other ideas and, as many other businesses have done, we needed to adapt and change our product to meet the demands of this new environment.
Thinking back over the last few months, we recognise how extremely lucky we were that our clients showed tremendous willing to adapt with us, so they could still deliver their superb educational content at a time when it was likely needed most. We are very privileged to work with such dedicated medical professionals who, despite the incredibly challenging times they found themselves in this year, have still pulled together conferences programmes that provided fantastic learning opportunities for their medical colleagues. To make things tricker, all of these conferences were hosted entirely virtually, which was something completely new to us and our clients.
Overall, we could not be more proud of the events that we have delivered this year, and to celebrate the successes we have written a short summary of our 2020 events below:
Chesterfield, Sheffield & Derby – FRCS Clinical Examination Course
The FRCS Clinical Examination Course was something new to us in 2020. We were tasked with the complex mission of turning their highly successful interactive course into a two-day virtual event filled with lectures, patient examinations and live panel discussions.
The focus of this course was to provide orthopaedic surgeons in the UK and around the world, the hands-on experience of examining and discussing patients from all orthopaedic sub-specialties ranging from children's orthopaedics to adult orthopaedics and spinal surgery.
During the event they showcased over 14 lectures and 60 professionally pre-recorded and edited clips of real patients. The event was delivered live through a webinar format with expert faculty providing additional live discussion-based teaching on the day, whilst answering questions from over 120 delegates from around the world. To our knowledge, this was the first ever course of its kind in the world!
B.S.O.A – Virtual Event Series
The British Society of Orthopaedic Anaesthetists (B.S.O.A) is a British national society gathering specialists in the field of orthopaedic anaesthesia.
The British Society of Orthopaedic Anaesthetists were set to have a busy year, with their Spring Scientific Meeting in Oxford and their Annual Scientific Meeting in Budapest. As these events could no longer take place, the BSOA rescheduled the Annual Scientific Meeting to November 2021 and organised a series of virtual ‘mini-events’ which ran from September to November.
The Virtual Event Series was a collection of three short and snappy afternoon sessions that delivered fascinating educational content at little to no cost to the delegate. The series of events consisted of lectures, live Q&A’s, and Trainee prizes with oral and poster presentations. Lecture topics included: Trauma in the Elderly, Day Case Hip Replacement, Neuromonitoring for Orthopaedic Surgery, Datix vs. Greatix, and much more.
The Virtual event series was very well attended and received very positive feedback.
SASWR – Annual Scientific Meeting
The Society of Anaesthetists of the South Western Region (SASWR) exists to bring together professionals in the region for education, professional development, and sharing of ideas.
The SASWR Annual Scientific Meeting is another new event for EMD, it was planned as a hybrid conference but days before this was due to go ahead the second national Lockdown came into effect and the conference had to quickly transition into a fully virtual event.
Despite this, the meeting was a fantastic success with over 200 delegates tuning in to hear talks about topics such as COVID, Patient Choice in Obstetrics, Paediatric Anaesthesia, Global Healthcare and much more.
NACCS – CPD Study Day
The Neuro Anaesthesia & Critical Care Society (NACCS) objective is “the advancement of education for the public benefit in the science of neuro anaesthesia and neuro critical care”. Their 2-day ASM was scheduled to take place in Leeds during May of this year, this has now been rescheduled to 2021.
In place of their usual ASM they hosted a Virtual CPD Study day, which covered a multitude of important topics, including: Strokes, Neuromonitoring, Management of TBI and SOS Trial, Paediatric Brain Injury Management and Transfer, Sleep and Wellbeing for Health Professionals, and Point of Care Ultrasound in Neurocritical Care.
The Study Day was only a small fee, and this inspired over 150 delegates to register for the event, which was very well received.
SIVA - Virtual Day Case Mini symposium
The Society for Intravenous Anaesthesia (SIVA) is a forum for information, education and debate about intravenous anaesthesia. Their Annual Scientific Meeting was heading north this year to the cultured city of Glasgow, but this has now been rescheduled to November 2021.
To ensure they continued their longstanding tradition of educating on the topic of intravenous anaesthesia they orchestrated a Virtual Day Case Mini symposium in collaboration with British Association of Day Surgery (BADS).
The Virtual Day Case Mini symposium covered topics such as: Procedural Sedation in Day Surgery, Spinal Anaesthesia in Day Surgery, New Drugs and Techniques in Day Surgery, and much more.
SIVA also incorporated their annual general meeting into the event, where members could join the AGM straight from the virtual platform.
The event had excellent delegate numbers and received some great feedback.
Summary
There was a point in time where we wondered if we would be working with our clients on any events this year, so to reach this point where we have delivered numerous successful events is a truly wonderful feeling and we could not be more excited about how the events will continue to grow and evolve next year. A special mention this year goes out to our AV partners ESW, they have provided tremendous assistance in helping us to achieve our same high standard of event management service in the new virtual environment. Stay tuned for another blog post in the near future where we will go through the events we are looking forward to working on in 2021!