September Academy Meeting

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CRAZYTERP

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Hi Everyone,

I am a medical student who will be presenting my research at the academy later this year and I had a question for anyone who has gone in the past about registration.

On the registration site they ask which courses I would like to sign up for (i.e. New advancements in rhinosinusitis, What the H&N Surgeon should know about the parathyroids, etc.). Though I am interested in some of the talks they all cost $ and I wanted to ask if medical students are supposed to go to these courses because I am pretty sure they are geared towards resident's and/or attending's in ENTs practice.

My real question is that if I do not sign up for the courses will I be missing out on the conference? Are there other things going on other than the courses to take advantage of?

Thanks,
Terp

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Congrats on presenting.

The academy is a great forum to learn and meet people. There are basically three main things -

1) Scientific sessions - these are presentations like you will be doing. These are every day mostly in the morning and divided into subspecialty groupings (a few hours for peds, H/N, otology, etc). These are free, but can be pretty specialized presentations. Seemed to be mostly frequented by academic types.
2) Miniseminars - These are free and are basically panel type presentations on a major topic (example from last years: Biofilms in oto, sleep surgery, etc). There are several at a time so you can choose based on your interest.
3) Instruction courses - These are the pay per course that you were asking about and there are a ton. First off, each morning there are first-come, first-served free tickets to certain of these. So you don't get to choose, but you can get in for free. Last year I paid for two courses before hand. I thought these courses were useful but I'm an upper level resident and chose based on my interests.

If you are going for your first time, there is plenty to see and do without spending a dime.

There is also the Expo which has hundreds of equipment reps and large demonstrations going on throughout the day.
 
Thanks fongool!

For anyone else going or presenting I will be in the peds section Tuesday morning. My presentation is on Syndromic Hearing loss so please stop by of you are interested. Look forward to attending the conference!

Take care,
Amit
 
They will make announcements during the day as well that they will give away free tickets to certain courses that don't sell out. These are typically given only to residents and med students. Keep in touch with the daily news and any flyers as they are typically first come first serve.

Walk around the job fair. You're obviously not going to interview, but you can get a "feel" for the market by looking around.

Also, as a resident I usually got 2-3 courses funded by reps so make sure you try and ask, especially if any are related to your research (hearing aid people, cochlear implants, etc seem to be in your realm).

Last, make sure you hang out with your residents. When I was one I was exceptionally good at trolling for freebies like dinner as most residents are. Almost always reps are treating people to stuff at night. Get on that as much as possible. Last year as an attending I got to go to a Yankees/Blue Jays game in Toronto on a rep I knew as a resident. Not necessarily a great game but I saw A-Rod and Jeter hit back to back home runs. That's nearly a once-in-a-lifetime in person event unless your a season ticket holder. Even better when it's free.

Wait, this is last. Don't be late for the lunches in the Expo. If you're late often you'll miss out on the desserts. Lunches aren't that great and there's rarely enough room to sit, but it's free.
 
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