I recently attended the American College of Physicians (ACP) Internal Medicine 2012 annual meeting, held this year in New Orleans. It’s a very large meeting with thousands of physicians attending. At any one time there are dozens of courses one can attend. I try to balance learning about subjects I have a particular interest in, with those that I’m less interested, and consequently have more to learn.
Among the talks I attended was a talk on genetics issues in internal medicine by Matthew Taylor, MD, PhD. He discussed an interesting case of a 19-year-old woman who had been in good health who had lifted weights, used a hot tub then went swimming in a lap pool and was found unresponsive in 4 feet of water in 1998. She was resuscitated but died in the hospital 12 days later. An EKG done during the hospitalization was mildly abnormal with a prolonged QT interval. This was dismissed by most cardiologists as probably or not significant when asked to review the EKG. A subsequent genetic analysis of autopsy material revealed a genetic condition associated with a prolonged QT interval, which itself increases the risk of sudden death due to an arrhythmia. Further testing showed her sister, mother and maternal grandfather were found to have the same genetic condition. Most physicians would not even consider a genetic condition as the cause of a drowning, yet making the diagnosis may prevent family members from dying due to an arrhythmia with appropriate treatment.
I attended a talk by Holly Holmes, MD on discontinuing medications. It’s much easier to start a medicine than to stop one, yet medications carry financial costs and may cause side effects. She went over some cases and discussed strategies to decrease medication use. Amusingly she pointed out that not only did she not have any financial disclosures that might cause a conflict of interest, but that no pharmaceutical company would want to pay her to recommend stopping medications!
Besides the vast number of courses, there were also hundreds of vendors from pharmaceutical companies discussing new medications, companies selling books, equipment, massage chairs and gluten free products, and many just providing free information. There were recruiters looking for doctors, and more.
There was also the opportunity to interact with colleagues from around the world. I spoke with some physicians in Canada, and one from Saudi Arabia. I usually attend the ACP national meetings every few years and always come away having learning things that will help my patients, and feeling more invigorated about my profession.
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