Editor’s Corner
Rituals of the Season
I
The content of the Editor’s Corner is
the opinion of the author and does
not represent the official position of
the American Society of Hematology
unless so stated.
’LL NEVER FORGET my first American Society of Hematology
(ASH) annual meeting.
I was a second-year fellow and a novice at “ASHing.” My
mentors had agreed to let me go to the meeting, which was held
in Nashville that year, but hadn’t counseled me about the ins and
outs of registration and housing. I registered for the meeting in
the fall (by now, ASH aficionados are probably groaning at the
naïve trainee who didn’t claim a spot at the peak of summer) and
the only hotel left was the Med Inn, where families and patients
from Vanderbilt University Medical Center stay.
My soon-to-be long-term ASH annual meeting roommate,
Gowthami Arepally, MD, was not amused. She had gone to
medical school at Vanderbilt, knew Nashville, and was simply as-
tonished at my hotel choice. She called around and was amazed.
Did I know that all the hotels were booked solid?
I can’t tell you exactly where in Nashville the hotel was, but
it definitely wasn’t close to Opryland, the conference venue. Like
me, the hotel’s front desk clerk was new to the ASH annual meet-
ing. He was gobsmacked that I expected to take a shuttle bus to
the meeting at Opryland; the Med Inn’s shuttle ran to Vanderbilt.
“Hit kin go to Baptist Hospital and hit kin go to the airport,
but hit don’t run to Opryland,” he assured me earnestly in his
Tennessee drawl. He called Opryland to make sure that he was
right – he wasn’t – and got all the details about where and when
the annual meeting shuttle picked meeting attendees up. He
promptly put me on the next bus which was, incidentally, the Jim
Beam tour of Nashville, and not the ASH shuttle at all.
So, rather than attending an education session on coagu-
lopathies, I got an informative, $27 tour of Nashville. (Did you
know that Nashville has the longest continuously occupied State
Capitol building? Uh huh. Neither did I.)
And then there was the conference venue … The folks at
Opryland could be grouped into two nonintersecting demo-
graphics: solemn, slightly grumpy professionals in a hurry to get
to their next session and tourists in rhinestone-studded denim
suits marveling at the Christmas decorations. This was a non-
harmonious group dynamic, especially at lunchtime.
Once the logistics worked themselves out and I actually made
it to the venue, good golly was I amazed at the hugeness of the
ASH annual meeting! As a first-time attendee and a second-year
fellow, I was simply overwhelmed by the wealth of session choices.
Lymphoma, platelets, or transplant? Scientific or educational
sessions? And don’t forget about the posters and the general ses-
sion hall with all the ASH banners and the multitude of screens
projecting faces of speakers.
“It’s just like Chairman Mao in the Great Hall of the People,”
I marveled to colleagues. I went back home with an overloaded
brain, sore feet, enthusiasm for all of hematology, and a deter-
mination to learn more and be a better clinician, educator, and
hematologist.
There have been other memorable ASH annual meetings.
There was the meeting in Philadelphia during the nor’easter,
which was memorable for canceled flights and nearly a foot of
snow. North Carolina was without electricity from an ice storm,
and I think I jumped the taxi line in my hurry to get to my hotel.
Then there was the annual meeting planned for New Orleans that
was displaced by Hurricane
Katrina. Do you all remember
how amazing it was that we
were able to take advantage of
Atlanta’s newly constructed
convention center? ASH staff
worked miracles and moved
the entire meeting – with just a
week’s delay – and it appeared
that every speaker but one was
Alice Ma, MD, is professor
able to rearrange his or her
of medicine in the Division of
schedule to attend.
Hematology and Oncology at
ASH just sparks that kind of
the University of North Carolina
loyalty in its devotees. The 2017
School of Medicine in Chapel Hill.
annual meeting also was marred
by snow. (Darn snow! Who
expects snow in December, for goodness sake?!) Many speakers
weren’t able to make it to Atlanta due to flight cancellations, but
everyone’s colleagues stepped up, and the ASH annual meeting
soldiered on.
Since my first ASH annual meeting – I think I might be up
to 24 or 25 consecutive meetings by now – I have established a
few traditions: I still room with Dr. Arepally, I still meet up with
colleagues and pals from around the country, and Marc Kahn,
MD, MBA, and I still skip the Ham-Wasserman Lecture to have
lunch and catch up – even when we really want to hear the talk.
Friday nights are devoted to grabbing dinner at some Asian dive
restaurant with a group of friends and colleagues who join me
for food and fellowship. And I still wonder why the floors in the
poster hall are so hard.
A few things have changed, though. Now, on Sunday nights, I
take my trainees out for dinner. And the annual meeting now co-
incides with many other meetings, like administrative meetings,
committee meetings, and study meetings – enough to keep me
from attending the talks I might otherwise have on my agenda.
Twenty-five years in, there is still more to see than I have
time for. I’m no longer tempted by transplant talks or lympho-
ma sessions, but I try to make time for something on a topic
with which I’m unfamiliar. I would like to give a shout-out to
Robert Brodsky, MD, who chaired this year’s “Hemolytic Ane-
mia: A Cornucopia of Causes” education session, and whose
talk almost had me able to understand and recall the details of
complement activation.
The latest meeting was also notable for ASH-a-Palooza – a
tour de force conceived by the Trainee Council and implemented
by the Committee on Training. More than 1,200 trainees and
faculty came to Petco Park, home of Major League Baseball’s
San Diego Padres, to learn about hematology – reaffirming that
learning about the blood is really, really cool and that hematolo-
gists can be super smart and still have fun.
After the 2018 ASH Annual Meeting, I’m still going home
with a full brain, sore feet, an enthusiasm for hematology, and a
determination to learn more and be better in the coming year.
See you all next year!
Alice Ma, MD
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editor at [email protected].
6
ASH Clinical News
January 2019