I like a party, but am not very fond of tea….
I am currently en route to Boston for the ASM/ Microbe conference. I have never been to Boston before, nor have I attended a conference in the USA, so really looking forward to it. Maybe I will come across some characters as described in this post!
I think when you go to a conference as big as this, with lots of parallel sessions and sideshows, you need to have a very clear idea of what you want to focus on before you go. Otherwise it is very easy to suffer information overload.
Therefore my objectives are as follows:
- Improve my knowledge of antibiotic stewardship.
- Find out what future innovations are being planned for the Kiestra TLA
- Become really familiar with the current Rapid PCR platforms and their test profiles.
Anything else is a bonus.
And I certainly hope to see plenty of Boston as well.
So no more blog posts for the next week. Look forward to getting down to some serious writing when I return, hopefully with the batteries recharged, and with lots of new ideas!
Michael
Visit the Old South Meeting House, corner of Milk and Washington Sts in Boston. There are statues of some really interesting historical figures including this person of MEDICAL (albeit not microbiological) interest….. Margaret Sanger’s statue showing her wearing her GAG because she was not allowed to SPEAK OUT… she was not only arrested by the Vice Squad of the City Police Dept, but JAILED…. for giving women CONTRACEPTIVE INFORMATION in the 1930s and 1940s in New York and Boston when to do so was ILLEGAL!
It is this brave woman who is creditted with starting the Family Planning Association in the US, not to mention overturning the legislation so that provision of contraception was LEGAL
Have a great trip and bring us back some cutting edge Microbiology and Microbiology history too for some of us medical history buffs! (Maybe a Conference at the Louis Pasteur institute in Paris next!)
Looks like my sightseeing schedule will be just as busy as the conference schedule!
Remember, it’s “Baah-stin” you’re visiting. The accent there is contagious! I live about 600 miles away and have never visited there either. I hear that public transportation is a necessity as many of the streets are very narrow, as they were in Colonial times. You are in the home of the original American Revolutionary uprising that broke the US away from England. Have a good time.