To the original poster: strong didactics are a sign of a strong program, and I think it's a red flag that your program is blowing them off.
As far as the attendance issue goes, my opinion has changed somewhat as I've advanced through residency. In the beginning when everything was still pretty new to me, I felt that it was kind of rude and disrespectful for people to blow off conferences. But now I realize that as residents we really need to learn how to budget our time and, especially as we may take on more and more extra projects, sometimes attending conference may not be in our best interests.
I disagree a bit, I don't think you should give yourself license to blow off conferences as you proceed in your residency just because you have more to do. I see people doing that here too, and I often wonder if that one hour of conference time is so important for their time management needs, that they probably need to learn how to budget their time better. I do agree though that there are some conferences which are more aimed at younger residents - we have some that repeat every couple of years or so, for example. And we have so many cytopathology conferences that I almost feel like we don't need to do a rotation sometimes.
Talking in general now, not to you, because I know you are a dedicated resident...
If too many residents blow off conferences, even the best prepared and well intentioned conferences suffer as a result. So while programs obviously need to work hard on their didactics, residents need to participate. Bailing because you are too busy is not the best excuse...conference time is protected time, as in it should not count towards your normal duties. If attendings are forcing you to do things during conference time, tell your PD because that's inappropriate. We have residents here who skip conferences because they are at the VA or because they have an autopsy - unnecessary! Sure, it might make your day easier to skip the conference, but we don't do things because they're easy.
I fully understand that my view on conference attendance is a bit old fashioned and doesn't appeal to everyone. But as I said, they take attendance for conferences here but it doesn't seem to matter. The same 5-10 of us generally show up for most conferences, and the rest of the residents ditch (and many of these residents are the flustered, poorly prepared, residents with poor time management skills, or they are the less dedicated residents, probably not coincidentally). Everyone knows that residency is demanding and to attend all conferences is not feasible. But you are primarily hurting yourself by ditching. There are other residents who only attend conferences that are in their area of interest - like the resident who never shows up to anything but when it's a GI path conference just magically seems to find time. You can't limit yourself during residency - boards aren't subspecialized. I don't know what happens to residents who don't attend any conferences.
Speaking as a resident who does attend conferences, by the way, there is very little that is more annoying than attending a conference with a great teacher and having only a few people there. Then we get emails or comments about how we should attend the conferences, and those of us who attend get the criticism because we happen to be there "representing" the residents.
We get lots of emails, requests from attendings, etc, on asking what can be done to improve conferences. The answers from many residents (usually residents who don't attend anyway) often include "have fewer conferences." Huh?
