R. Bruce Williams, MD
July 2019—I attended our first CAP annual meeting and haven’t missed one since. Pathology is dynamic and complex, so our learning team is forever coming up with useful and meaningful ways to present new material. Everyone who is involved in any way wants to make our time in Orlando engaging and enjoyable. CAP19 will be the best ever.
For example, last year a handful of Saturday courses were introduced at CAP18, such that the scientific programming started a day early to accommodate members with less flexible schedules. That went well. It went so well in fact that our intrepid CAP Curriculum Committee, chaired by Sarah M. Bean, MD, added six more courses this year on the first day, Sept. 21, and a full-day intensive on genitourinary pathology on the last day (Sept. 25). And because the committee is not only brave but also creative, it has recruited some of our best speakers for a 1.5-day laboratory professionals immersive (think actionable, experience-driven, science-fueled, big-picture team building).
Donna Hansel, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Pathology at Oregon Health & Science University and professor, OHSU School of Medicine, will moderate the genitourinary pathology course. Dr. Hansel has structured the content around practical, case-based presentations by five renowned genitourinary pathologists who will cover the management of prostate, kidney, bladder, penile, and testis specimens. Updated staging criteria will be presented, along with common and uncommon entities likely to be encountered in a general surgical pathologist’s daily practice.
An interview with Dr. Hansel is among the podcasts featuring CAP19 faculty that are embedded with course descriptions on the CAP19 website (www.capannualmeeting.org). The podcasts are a real asset when trying to sort through 86 courses taught by 140 faculty and providing up to 36.75 CME/SAM and 14.25 CE credits.
I hope everyone will attend our scientific plenary on the patient microbiome moderated by James Versalovic, MD, PhD, on Sunday morning and the special lecture on the evolution of molecular diagnostics presented Tuesday afternoon by Carl T. Wittwer, MD, PhD, a giant in the field.
Poster sessions Sunday through Tuesday will showcase selected research accepted for the CAP19 Abstract Program. Editors of the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine have selected more than 680 abstracts and case reports for presentation at CAP19; authors will be present to talk about their work during the first hour of each session. Please stop in to see the posters and talk with the authors, even if it does take a while to get through them all, what with bumping into friends you haven’t seen since CAP18. (Accepted abstracts and case studies will be published in a Web-only supplement to the September 2019 issue of Archives. The editors also selected five abstracts submitted by CAP junior members for the Top 5 Junior Member Abstract Program; cash awards will be presented to the top five junior member winners.)
The Sunday evening keynote will be presented by Jamie Heywood of PatientsLikeMe (www.patientslikeme.com), a novel research and peer support platform through which patients connect and share information about their treatments, symptoms, and outcomes. More than 600,000 patients representing 2,800 conditions have participated in the open platform, which empowers patients and gives unique insight to clinicians, providers, researchers, and the pharmaceutical industry.
The thank-you reception for PathPAC donors will take place Sunday evening. (Yes, contributions from CAP members will be accepted at the door.) On Monday afternoon there’s the advocacy town hall, which will bring us up to speed on hot issues like out-of-network surprise billing and innovative payment models.
Our membership team has put together a fun event to benefit the CAP Foundation on Monday night. A $150 ticket to the Evening at Epcot provides entry to the park as early as 5 PM, a Disney gift card, a fireworks show, and transportation back to the hotel. The event supports leadership development for CAP members and our See, Test & Treat program, through which volunteer pathologists and other medical professionals provide free cancer screening to underserved women.
The Laboratory Professionals Program (Sept. 24–25) is a new learning and networking opportunity designed for the entire laboratory staff. Speakers will highlight major updates in the 2019 accreditation checklists, explore root cause analysis, discuss best practices in test validation, and examine emerging concepts spanning several disciplines, such as microbiology, point-of-care testing, hematology, and accuracy-based testing. Top experts will talk about challenges encountered and solutions devised in our laboratories, and small-group discussions will provide an opportunity to talk about those issues and help one another acquire new problem-solving skills. A full-day inspector training seminar on Sept. 25 will provide a more robust focus on inspection skills than we’ve offered in years. Check out the faculty roster on the website; it’s going to be terrific. (Registration is $50 for nonphysicians who come to Orlando for the Laboratory Professionals Program only. Pathologists attending the Laboratory Professionals Program but not CAP19 will pay the $350 CAP19 daily fee. For those attending CAP19 all week, registration for Sept. 24 and 25 is included in the global fee.)
CAP19 and the Laboratory Professionals Program remind us that we earn the respect of our patients and partners by continually challenging ourselves in a setting that is evolving rapidly, highly collaborative, and often intense. Like all health professionals, we set the bar high while making it look easy. We do that well for the most part, but professionalism can take a toll: What we call stress can be less about workload than agency, autonomy, and connection. Learn more about that at the hot topic lecture on physician resilience and wellness Tuesday morning.
I hope everyone will build in time for networking and learning in the exhibit hall, in which 100 industry partners will showcase technology and practice solutions. These partners support our meeting; we should make them feel welcome. Besides, it’s fun to step into the exhibit hall between classes and discover so much in so little time about the latest tools for laboratories. Be sure to visit the CAP booth too. Chat with our excellent staff about member services, practice management tools, and current advocacy goals.
At CAP19, we will continue to connect as individuals, members of laboratory teams, and advocates for enlightened public policy. Come on Saturday for an early course or two and observe the House of Delegates at work. Stop into the residents and new-in-practice lounge, open Sunday–Tuesday afternoons, and meet some of our future leaders.
And please join us for reports from the leadership at the meeting of members on Saturday afternoon, where my good friend Patrick Godbey, MD, will be sworn in as your new president. That evening, plan to enjoy Pat’s inaugural dinner, which will take a Kentucky Derby theme. Bring your dancing shoes or your riding breeches and join the celebration.
Dr. Williams welcomes communication from CAP members. Write to him at president@cap.org.