The Extended Congress: Reimagining scientific meetings after the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted the medical meetings planned for 2020. This health crisis has caused the cancellation, postponement or a pivot in educational design to virtual formats. In the latter case, the format for virtual meetings has remained very similar to the cancelled face-to-face meeting, by using primarily web conferencing systems.This article intends to start a dialogue with the medical education and events community about possible delivery formats. Among them, the concept of an "Extended Congress" is introduced.The extended congress uses the extension of time, space and languages to a scientific meeting. It aims to: 1) unleash the reach of traditional meetings through the use of technology to access larger audiences in different languages, across a country and internationally, with local leaders to help interpret the knowledge and localize it, and 2) to improve knowledge translation into practice through a sequential and active learning process.An ongoing example is described as a proof of concept: the Latin American Peritoneal Dialysis Extended Congress attracted 774 remote participants from over 20 countries, 93% of whom were paid registrants. Initially designed as a hybrid (live plus remote) event scheduled for March 2020, it had to be reframed as a remote only meeting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, thus protecting the health of members while providing continued value to the organization and attendees of the event.With this experience in mind, the authors are currently designing programs in the United States, through collaboration with the University of Virginia Office of Continuing Medical Education.In summary, the design of meetings can better utilize and integrate technology and reach larger audiences with a blend of formats. Those organizations that adapt more quickly to offer these events will concentrate more of the share, as seen with the adoption of technology by other industries.

Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: The perceptions of health professions educators [Version 2]

“…There were several hundred registrants in 20 countries and the most likely outcome was cancellation. Instead, organisers spread sessions over 4-8 weeks to allow for engagement through local and technology-mediated discussions while registrants continued to work (Margolis et al, 2020). These blended conference delivery approaches may become part of all future conferences.…”

The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Virtual Conference Taskforce: Recommendations for Hosting a Virtual Surgical Meeting

“…The concept of an “extended conference” has been described and may be considered when the topics and audience are well-suited for such a format. 3 This may consist of an initial hybrid conference in the first week with in-person and remote participation, followed by several weeks of short lectures, reading materials, simulation, and forum discussions in a forum. Another option is the “Netflix” concept, where several prerecorded episodes (an entire “season”) are posted on the same day for viewers to watch at their leisure.…”

Um Relato de Experiência da Adaptação de um Evento Acadêmico Presencial para o Contexto Virtual em Tempos de Pandemia

“…Além disso, Charnell (2020) sugere que sejam considerados os dispositivos utilizados pelos participantes no momento da preparação do material de divulgação e o material apresentado. Por sua vez, Margolis et al (2020) relata as dificuldades e lições aprendidas da realização do evento Latin American Peritoneal Dialysis Extended Congress em 2020. Embora o evento tenha sido realizado na área da saúde, os autores apresentam lições aprendidas sobre como integrar mais de 20 países e 700 participantes no evento.…”

“…Nesse contexto, um movimento tem surgido com o intuito de promover o uso de Tecnologias da Informação e Comunicação (TICs) na modalidade de ensino a distância (EAD) [Farias e Giordano, 2020]. Apesar da existência de relatos de experiência sobre o uso de TICs no ensino a distância [Kemczinski et al, 2009][Mendes et al, 2020, não são comuns os trabalhos que focam em como planejar, executar e avaliar os resultados de um evento realizado 100% de forma remota e, muito menos, na área de computação [Margolis et al, 2020][Porpiglia et al, 2020. RBIE v.28 -2020…”