I’m attending the AAIM Annual Meeting. The first day was great – with a great list of speakers who created a lot of buzz in the audience. Our first platform with Dr. Elizabeth Arias from the National Center for Health Statistics was excellent and very timely, as she addressed the spike in accidental poisoning deaths – which are mostly from opioids. Another interesting finding she highlighted was the “Hispanic paradox” where Americans of Hispanic ethnicity have, on average, a survival advantage over non-Hispanics. The first concurrent session was highlighted by Dr. Anitha Rao’s excellent discussion of dementia; she is also an innovator who has developed a care planning tool for families struggling with this disease – and which could also help insurers optimize home-based care solutions. Dr. Ira Adams-Chapman presented an encyclopedic talk on the morbidity and mortality of infant prematurity. I felt like I was in medical school again, with a great professor.
In the afternoon, Dr. Jaime Vengoecchea brought some much needed perspective to the genetic testing furor. He really sand-blasted some of the shine off of the shiny object. His talk was well received and hopefully will bubble up to the ears of industry executives. Our final platform by Mike Fulks from CRL was up to his usual standards of excellence and reviewed some very relevant laboratory conundrums. He also did a good job of dealing with a very persistent questioner.