As I begin writing this post, it is only a few hours until I have to leave from the airport. But, I have found in the past, that this is when I do my most true writing. This was my final day at the 2012 AAFP National Conference of Family Medicine Residents and Medical Students. And, what a day....
In the morning, I took part in the AAFPNC Ignite sessions which was a very unique experience for me. This is a presentation style in which you have 5 minutes to present 20 slides. If you do the math, this is 15 seconds per slide. And, here is the kicker, the slides are advanced for you and you do not have control over this. You can see (and judge) what I did in the video below.
One session that I circled to go to was with Dr. Ted Epperly and Dr. Lori Heim, both of whom where past AAFP Presidents. They had a session on leadership, and they shared situations from their past leadership experiences. Dr. Epperly just authored a book about the "Fractured" US health care system, and I hope to interview him on the podcast coming up soon.
The last event of the evening was a social event at the Midland Theater where they played 80s music - Good stuff! What was even better for me was that I got to chat with a number of AAFP Board Members on a variety of topics. A skill I'm trying to learn from them is storytelling. They use this storytelling skill to share about their own practice/business situation, and they tell us about the great Family Medicine leaders that they have met across the country.
In a little levity moment during the conference, our friends at the Pennsylvania Academy of Family Physicians had a booth on the exhibit floor in which they were taking green screen pictures of people with the express purpose of putting fun backgrounds behind them. The theme was superheroes, so you see what they did in the picture at the top of this post.
Finally, last week, I predicted that this would be THE most social media connected meeting EVER for residents and students. I'm usually not one to point out metrics, because they are imperfect. However, according to the graphic below, the #AAFPNC hashtag has over 130,000 impressions on the internet. That may not be impressive to you, but our meeting attendance was about 4000 for that many impressions. I'm very proud about what has been accomplished here in terms of social media. Family Medicine IS a leader in social media, and this conference proves that! Now, it's time for me to head home. Thanks Residents & Students for making this a memorable meeting for me!
