November 2015 NAN Conference in Austin, Texas

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OneNeuroDoctor

OneNeuroDoctor

Clinical Neuropsychologist
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I am finally going to my first NAN Conference as a Professional member of NAN. I registered early, reserved Flights and Conference Hotel so I am all set. Cost so far is in the $2000 dollar range with registration, Flight, car rental, and Hotel.

I will be there from Tues to Saturday, so I will lose five days of income. They are having a new system of CEU where you don't have to pay separately for each workshop.

Almost everyday they are having Social Hours and I have heard that neuropsychologist party into the mid morning hours, but all of the training sessions for ABPP preparation are at 7 am in the morning meaning getting up before 6 am on three straight mornings. Almost seems like an error scheduling workshops at 7 am and I guess some will arrive late.

Anybody else attending NAN this year? Sound like it draws an international group with 2000 to 3000 attendees. Conference Hotel sold out quickly and it has at least 1500 rooms. Texas has many neuropsychologist living near Austin so many may commute back and forth to save on Hotel rate. They only reserved a small number of conference rate rooms that went quickly so most of us had to pay the $329 a night rate with 30 parking rate per day.
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$329 a night? Wow, that's steep. You can probably do better at a nearby hotel. Also, downtown Austin is not that huge and is easy to navigate on foot or via public transit. If you're planning to stay in the downtown area the whole time, renting a car is a waste of money.
 
I don't go to NAN generally. Problem with hotels for this is that they booked the conference when like 3 other large events are going on, so space is at a premium. Look into AirBnB. Renting a car is def a waste of money considering the traffic in that city.
 
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Apparently most of the nearby Hotels are booked and they now have space at a Sheraton that is several miles away. I am staying W and Thurs at Conference Hotel but Tues and Fri at a cheaper Hotel near the Air Port as my plane leaves at 6:30 AM on Sat. Morning. I have a discount car rental rate of 43 dollars a day for four days and usually they charge 20 bucks to shuttle from the air port.
 
I remember once attending a conference in San Antonio with reservations at the Marriott. When I arrived they had switched my reservation to the overflow Hotel away from the Riverwalk and a ten block walk to the Conference. Hopefully, this does not happen at NAN and they move me to the Sheraton two miles away since I had to prepay.
 
I'd thought about it, but the hoop-jumping required to request time off through the VA combined with the hotel situation convinced me to just go with INS again instead. I do have a few friends and co-workers attending, though, and I like the flat rate registration idea.
 
Curious as to what the other npsych's do. As someone who never has to pay for CE's, NAN has never really been on my conference radar. I'm pretty much exclusive to INS and AACN. For those who go to NAN, what do you get out of it?
 
NAN seems to have more intro neuropsych stuff. Other than the CPT code presentation, I get nothing out of it, other than a tax write off for the vacation. Despite being a jerk, I have several friends whom I socialize with at these things.
 
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PSYDR said:
NAN seems to have more intro neuropsych stuff. Other than the CPT code presentation, I get nothing out of it, other than a tax write off for the vacation. Despite being a jerk, I have several friends whom I socialize with at these things.
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Yeah, just may be more of the institutions I've worked in, but most of my colleagues go to INS, and a smaller number to AACN. I always thought of NAN as pretty practice-only oriented while INS was more academic and AACN more balanced.
 
INS and probably AACN for me next year. I'll also probably go to the Div 22 midwinter conference if it isn't too pricey. I didn't go to any conferences this year, so I figure I can get out a bit more.
 
I have never been to NAN and it is close to where I live this year. Most of the neuropsych in my geographical area are NAN members and they have told me NAN puts on great conferences and that I will have a great time. I guess I will find out what it is like in three weeks.

I was at my State Psychology Conference last week and the Pearson Psychologists Representatives indicated they enjoy having a booth at NAN.

I like warm weather conferences and INS is in Boston this year during Winter. Typically, I attend conferences close to where I live due to travel expenses.

I will attend AACN in Chicago as I am planning on taking my Board exam at the conference in June at the AACN conference. NAN is having Board Preparation workshops.
 
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I made it to the NAN conference. Not as big of a crowd as other neuropsychologist had reported. I would guess it is under a 1000. Seems to be a large number of students and ECP here. I attended exam preparation for ABN and it seems that they have only 385 members and ABN Board Certification is not equivalent to ABPP CN Certification and that most of their members were not approved by ABPP CN so they opted for ABN Certification.

Anybody else at NAN? I forgot how Austin has big traffic jams. Austin is getting to big!
 
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I am at the Pediatric Epilepsy workshop. More people arrived after lunch and now I would guess 2000 or more attendee. PSYD I am the older guy with messy hair... I forgot my comb and have not located the Hotel store yet to buy a comb to comb my hair. I did not get here until around midnight so I am sleep deprived but hopefully will catch up tonight.
 
WTF is this...twitter?
 
There is a Twitter link and a NAN app that I downloaded. Unfortunately, they don't have wireless and the presenters are having issues with their Power Points as each page is having issue loading. Cecil Reynolds presented the BASC III this morning and went over 20 minutes messing up beginning the Grand Rounds Pediatric session. Another issue is they did not have any morning breaks.
 
Apparently Texas was flooded out last week and it is suppose to rain the next three days during the conference and weather reports are expecting more flooding. Brazos River looks full and it is only a block away from the JW Marriott Hotel in downtown Austin.

Could be hail storm and some indication of high winds and tornado risk with flash flooding on Thursday.
 
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WisNeuro said:
Curious as to what the other npsych's do. As someone who never has to pay for CE's, NAN has never really been on my conference radar. I'm pretty much exclusive to INS and AACN. For those who go to NAN, what do you get out of it?
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INS (about every other year depending on location), AACN (same), and APA Div 40 (most years). I'm sure I'll go to NAN sometime if the location is good and I either get to go free through work or write it off. I take some CEUs at every conference and write them off. But I always try to turn conferences into a mini vacation if I can.
 
Anthony Puente going to make psychology a division of neuropsychology. He has a quick wit but has serious moments. Looks to be a good APA president winning in a landslide some 6000 votes ahead of second.
 
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Day two... More people arrived today.. Guessing in the 3000-4000 range. Attending neuroimaging workshop and finding out it is a very imprecise science. Need to actually do mental status exam, review records, have face-to-face communication with patient rather than only reviewing neuroimaging radiology report to assess and make decisions.
 
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Food and coffee is great. No bagels but oatmeal, assortment of choices.

CT scans have improved greatly and considered the Gold Standard due to you can have metal in the room and you can do CT during surgery. CT slide can be available in four minutes.
 
What exactly do you mean by saying that CT is the "Gold Standard?" It is far from the gold standard for a great many things. If I'm looking for blood in the brain posttrauma, it's fantastic. If I'm looking for chronic ischemic microvascular change in an older patient, or mesial temporal sclerosis in an epileptic? Yeah, not so good.
 
If I am understanding it is the gold standard for acute brain trauma such as brain bleeds as MRI has problems with brain bleeds. CT used during emergency acute injury diagnosis and surgery. MRI seems to misdiagnose brain bleeding subcortical areas.
 
He is not sure about using quantitative eeg, but seems to think neuropsychologist need to have neuroimaging training to the point that CT/MRI will become standard in our Evals and reports.

Apparently both Radiologist and Neurologist commonly make errors from review of scans.
 
Interesting... A concussion may have a normal scan initially but six month post onset of concussion the scan will show damage from slight brain bleed not initially found in the first scan. Concussion diagnoses and assessment changes over time and impairment may be worse in 3-6 month over initial scan.
 
OneNeuroDoctor said:
Interesting... A concussion may have a normal scan initially but six month post onset of concussion the scan will show damage from slight brain bleed not initially found in the first scan. Concussion diagnoses and assessment changes over time and impairment may be worse in 3-6 month over initial scan.
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This is where imaging things tend to get a bit wonky (e.g., if we're talking DTI, clinical correlation and normative standards haven't even been set yet, as far as I know). We know the research indicates that in the vast majority of concussions, return to baseline cognitive functioning by about 3 months post-injury (and generally well before that) is the norm.

As for neuroimaging in neuropsych, I look at the slides myself and detail the indicated findings (when available) in all of my reports. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes not. Same goes for lab data. I don't always include a medications list (it's available in the chart), but I do always review said list.

CT is great in acute settings because A) it's fast, B) it's cheap(er than MRI), C) it generally sees what you're wanting to see, and D) you can do it without worrying about metal, like you've said. Downside is radiation exposure, even if only a small amount. Which is of course why it's not indicated in every potentially-applicable situation.

I think it'd be great if professional organizations offered brush-up neuroimaging CEs, much like NAN does with its neuroanatomy course. Actually, some already might, I just haven't checked recently.
 
DTI=not ready for prime time. It's following the path of fMRI back in the day. Lots of poorly controlled, small n data on clinical populations, and people over-generalizing that to their clinical practice well before it's ready.
 
WisNeuro said:
DTI=not ready for prime time. It's following the path of fMRI back in the day. Lots of poorly controlled, small n data on clinical populations, and people over-generalizing that to their clinical practice well before it's ready.
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Yep. The idea of the technology (theoretically) is great, and it's research potential is significant. But like you've said, folks seem to be wanting to push for clinical use before it's ready.
 
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Qeeg mapping is a artificial technology that is computer generated based on brain electrical activity. I guess it generates some type of virtual visual representation of brain electrical activity giving feedback for the psychologist and client to chart or progress change from baseline. Many view it as Hocus Pocus with limited science based formulation. Seems that it would not meet empirical standards.

On to Pediatric Neuropsychology Assessment workshop... My My is this a packed room. Presenter are young Canadian Neuropsychologist and very serious. Whole focus so far is "scatter" is normal and Normal Curve is not best practice for pediatric neuropsychology assessment since a child may have average cognitive functioning with significant neurocognitive impairment.
 
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Second presenter is up and covering validity testing for Children and that everyone doing child Evals must now include either embedded validity testing or a freestanding validity testing such as TOMM.
 
This year for each time segment you have two options. For this time slot it was this or Ethics. I already did the APA Trust. At 3 pm we switch and I am going to a a NIH toolbox for rehabilitation.

They don't have differentiation of beginning, intermediate, or advanced. They are not leaving time for question and having trouble entering and leaving each session as they are scanning barcodes on our name tags.
 
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They have a new format this year where you pay $475 for the whole Conference and can attend any workshop rather than pay for each workshop as in prior years. Some of the Old School preferred the prior model. People apparently ran into problems flying yesterday.
 
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Flash floods and Tornado coming through this area today.

Getting ready for President Address and reception this evening.
 
PSYDR said:
no.
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This is sad to hear. NAN used to have some pretty good talks.

Agreed that it's a bit surprising an entire talk has been devoted to espousing the necessity of validity testing, regardless of whether it's children or adults. NAN tends to mostly be PP folks I believe, but are many of them really that out of touch with the literature...?
 
Day 3. Up early and attending the ABCN preparation workshop. Not going well as seems to be a number of angry psychologist disputing what the presenter is covering.

Written exam pass rate is in the 60% range and presenter indicated this is an acceptable pass rate and says you can retake the exam as many time as you want but many choose to not re take or give up, and that is on them not ABCN.

Apparently after third failure you have to reapply. Somewhere in the bylaws an applicant may meet all of the requirements but the Board still has at it's discretion to deny the applicant from continuing to the next stage despite an applicant meeting all the requirements.

Presenter seems out of touch with Internship crisis as he indicated it should be no problem for students to get an APA Internship and APA accredited postdoc.

Not going well as some 20 attendees have already left the workshop.
 
Exam is 125 questions but 25 are pilot and not scored. They recommend 8-10 books to read and he indicated if you study these books you will pass the test.
 
OneNeuroDoctor said:
Presenter seems out of touch with Internship crisis as he indicated it should be no problem for students to get an APA Internship and APA accredited postdoc.
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Actually he seems to be in touch as the vast majority of those coming from reputable programs match just fine.
 
The person asking the question indicated completing an APA accredited program but matched to a non APA accredited internship and she is currently in a non APA neuropsychology residency.

He did not really answer question and said acquiring APA accredited pre and postdoc is not a problem.
 
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