This time last year I had just returned from the AAPM Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas, full of enthusiasm for the great talks I’d heard, old friends I’d caught up with, and all the new medical physics I’d learned. I was also somewhat exhausted by the scorching temperatures in Texas and the long-haul flight home. In 2020, however, things are inevitably very different.
This year’s American Association for Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) Annual Meeting, held jointly with the Canadian Organization of Medical Physicists (COMP), was meant to take place this week in Vancouver. But due to the coronavirus pandemic, the organizers decided to turn the entire event virtual. Despite missing out on a trip to Canada, I nevertheless “attended” this year’s meeting. As well as hearing about some of the latest scientific developments, I was also keen to find out how a virtual conference could actually work.
The 2020 Joint AAPM|COMP Virtual Meeting incorporated the presentations that would have been given in Vancouver into five days of online sessions. Speakers had recorded their scientific presentations in advance, and these were then played during the scheduled session over a live Zoom call. The presenters were also present at their respective sessions, to answer any questions from the audience after their recordings finished. The first talk that I listened to had a few teething troubles, with some erroneous ghostly chat playing out over the recorded presentation. But overall, and considering the immense technical task involved, all ran pretty smoothly on the technology side.
One major advantage of a virtual conference is that there’s no tie to any particular time zone. After their scheduled slots, all of the scientific sessions are available to watch on-demand for six weeks after the meeting. Indeed, being in Central European Summer Time, some six hours ahead of the conference’s Eastern Time-scheduled agenda, I watched all of the talks on catch-up the next day. While this felt a little disconnected from the live event, it was great to be able to choose exactly which sessions I wanted to hear, and when to listen – with none of those disappointing timetable clashes that are inevitable at this type of large event.
Alongside, this virtual format opens up meeting attendance to many attendees who, for geographical, financial or other constraints, may not otherwise been able to attend. Looking at the map of delegates that the organizers had created revealed that this truly was a global event. And also perhaps more of a family-friendly event than in previous years. Judging by the photos that I saw on Twitter, of delegates watching the conference talks accompanied by their children, babies, flatmates and cats (lots of cats), the ability to take part whenever, from wherever, is certainly a big bonus to many. As one attendee Tweeted: “I miss seeing colleagues in person, but as a new parent I definitely appreciate the benefits of a virtual #AAPMCOMP2020!”
Of course, online attendance does come with issues of its own. “Overall, I’ve found it harder to focus during the virtual meeting relative to an in-person meeting,” Catherine Steffel, a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told me. “Someone on Twitter mentioned that the amount of screen time you’re exposed to during a virtual conference makes it a challenge, while another person said that what makes a virtual conference tiring is sitting in the same place for long periods. I definitely agree with both comments.”
The danger of scientific meetings going online only
Another obvious downside to the meeting going virtual is the lack of social contact. Whether reconnecting with old friends and colleagues, or random meetings with strangers who may turn into new collaborators or contacts for future research – without the evening social events, the crowded coffee breaks, and the opportunity to simply bump into people wandering around the show, such interactions are beyond reach in this new regime.
The organizers definitely tried to address these shortfalls, for example by including “social hour discussions” in the agenda, running various Twitter-based competitions and introducing an app-based fitness challenge to replace the traditional 5K race that’s run each year. A personal favourite of mine was the “Medical Physics Family Storytime” held on the first evening, in which “fellow medical physicists share STEM-centric books for children of all ages”.
Overall, as a delegate, I experienced both benefits and downsides to the virtual conference. As a journalist, there are pros and cons too. While it’s great to be able to pause a recorded presentation to take notes, it’s also impossible to catch a speaker after their talk to ask a quick question or take an on-site photo to use in a future article.
While the conference has now finished, there are still many presentations that I’d like to listen to. And with six weeks to catch up on the content, my main problem may be knowing when to stop.
- Hear more of my thoughts on the 2020 Joint AAPM|COMP Virtual Meeting in this week’s Physics World Weekly podcast.
