2011 Arequipa Healthcare Conference

Photo: Post-conference speakers dinner.

Photo: The beautiful campus of our host site, Catholica University.

Photo: Dra. Natalie Gehringer and our wonderful interpreter Ms. Nancy Talavares.

Photo: I don't think the problem of attendance was related to the size of our poster.

It is Sunday afternoon and our conference has come and gone.

The conference this year was a mixed blessing. On the shinning side, we had an amazing team of North American and Peruvian speakers. Their depth of knowledge about pediatric respiratory illness was amazing. Not to mention the time, energy and expense they all took to be a part of the conference and this learning opportunity. HBI owes them a great deal of gratitude. We are proud to be affiliated with such amazing people.

An area that we continue to struggle is conference participation. We had so much hope that we would sell out the conference this year. Our goal was to fill the main conference room - a plenary audience of almost 300 people. Well, we fell far short of this number. In fact, we ended up with a total enrollment of under 60 attendees.

The professionals who attended the conference were very engaged and enthusiastic about the material being presented. In a post conference evaluation, the vast majority of attendees ranked the experience as "exceptional." The question we are all left with is . . . if people enjoyed the conference so much, why are the attendance numbers so low?

We can't judge the quality of this experience based on our attendance. Rather, I am very optimistic for the future of our conference because of the enthusiastic conversations that took place over the two days. We discussed advancing the "humanitarian efforts of Peruvian organizations," reviewed critical care guidelines for pediatric respiratory illnesses, and engaged in practical skills building sessions. In fact, the whole experience was very collegial.

Our next conference is scheduled for September. We are already starting the planning. I am certain we will apply the learnings from this conference. Heck, even if we helped only one physician or nurse gain the skills they need to better serve the patients they work with - the conference was a huge success.