By Michael McDevitt, MD, PhD
2009-09-01
Dr. McDevitt is Assistant Professor of
Medicine and Oncology, Divisions of Hematology and Hematological Malignancy,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive
Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.
The
51st ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition, which will be held December 5-8, 2009,
at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, promises to offer a
whirlwind exhibition of the latest discoveries and clinical approaches in the
hematologic field and abundant opportunities for professional development. The
Society continues to plan a jam-packed meeting, so you will want to make sure
you don’t overlook certain aspects of the meeting. A number of relatively
recent additions to the annual meeting program have been added that warrant a
careful inspection before booking flights and making hotel reservations with
the flurry that usually accompanies registration for the ASH annual meeting.
To
help with this planning, the Schedule At-a-Glance is already posted on the ASH
Web site (www.hematology.org/schedule). Here, we see the Friday Satellite
Symposia begin bright and early at 7:00 a.m. on Friday, December 4, and
continue throughout the day until 10:00 p.m. Although not a formal part of the
ASH meeting, these symposia, which are sponsored by nonprofit and for-profit
organizations, provide interesting information for both clinicians and
researchers. Also on Friday, December 4, is Trainee Day (www.hematology.org/trainee-events). This program, open to trainees only, is a half-day workshop designed to support
and encourage trainees in the field of academic hematology and to enhance their
career development. This program will be presented through didactic and
interactive small-group breakout sessions that will provide attendees with
abundant time for discussion, questions, and answers.
On
Saturday, December 5, the ASH annual meeting officially begins with multiple
education and scientific sessions that start at 7:30 a.m. Attendee registration
opens at 7:00 a.m. Throughout the meeting, ASH News Daily will be
available with concise highlights of the previous day’s events and previews of
upcoming presentations. This specialty newspaper will be available at various hotels,
on shuttle buses, and at the convention center at the crack of dawn. A general
preview and introduction to the 51st annual meeting is succinctly
provided by our ASH President Nancy Berliner, MD, in Greetings From the
President found in the Preliminary Program (This publication was mailed in July.)
Here, she introduces the Education and Scientific Program presentations, special
awards such as the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in
Hematology, Dameshek Prize, and Stratton Medal, and lectures such as the E.
Donnall Thomas Lecture and the new Ernest Beutler Lecture and Prize. New this
year will be a special symposium on Saturday presented by the Quality-of-Care
Subcommittee that will focus on the current and future efforts to improve the
national blood supply.
For
the last several years, the final day of the annual meeting (This year it’s
Tuesday, December 8.) has enjoyed an expanded format different from previous
years and is worthy of careful review. Similar to last year, a special
late-breaking abstracts session will also be offered on Tuesday morning. Back
for its fourth year, the Special Symposium on the Basic Science of Hemostasis
and Thrombosis with invited presentations by leaders in the field and
simultaneous oral sessions will take place Tuesday morning and afternoon. In a
recent Hematologist article, Dr. Bruce Furie discussed the history and
rationale for the development of this special session to support the
hemostasis/thrombosis community. This “meeting-within-a-meeting” will highlight
seminal research advances made this year in the areas of thrombosis, blood
coagulation, fibrinolysis, and platelet biology.
With
such a rich menu of opportunities and approximately 4,000 abstracts presented
over four days, it will be impossible to attend every session one might hope
to. The Best of ASH session, scheduled on Tuesday from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m.,
will provide an opportunity to take home at least some of the most important
highlights. During this one-hour session, a group of four expert panelists,
Drs. Armand Keating, Alexis A. Thompson, Joel Anne Chasis, and Richard A. Van
Etten, will identify a few of the key themes from the 2009 meeting.
So with the promise of Louisianan hospitality,
cuisine, and evening jazz to complement the science and medical breakthroughs,
we can count on a spectacular annual meeting experience this coming December.
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