11th World Congress of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology

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Dr. Josh Copel:  “Hi, I’m interviewing Dr. Lachlan De Crespigny who is well known in ultrasound for many years.  After we spent the last couple of weeks in joining the views from Sydney on worldwide television, we will be following in the steps of the Olympics and taking the 11^th World Congress of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology to Melbourne, Australia that’s a little bit different from Sydney.  I’d like to ask you how is it different and what can we look forward to?”

Dr. Lachlan De Crespigny: “Mostly, we can look forward to the scientific program which we hope we will bring in some innovations to allow the audience more participation in the program by meeting many of the lecturers, the latest speakers, and by having lunch sessions with the latest speakers and audience electronic voting.  Clearly, they can feel very much involved in it but as you said as well, we have to ride on the back of the Olympics in that I think the people have now seen much of the wonderful environment that Australia has to offer and the people will take it as an opportunity to extend this to be a holiday as well.”

Dr. Josh Copel:  “Will there be hands-on scanning available for the participants at this meeting?”

Dr. Lachlan De Crespigny:  “We want to emphasize live scanning and the manufacturers as well are very keen to have that to expose their machines, and many of our people in Australia and I know elsewhere want to see the expert scanning.  With live scanning we probably wouldn’t do too much of that but with the size of meeting we’ll have, it’s difficult to give individual hands-on in any meaningful way.”

Dr. Josh Copel:  “How large of a meeting are you anticipating?”

Dr. Lachlan De Crespigny:  “We’re expecting 1,500 people.  What’s interesting is a lot of people think that Europeans and people from North America won’t come to Australia for meetings but, in fact, the track record is very different.  The Menopause Association met recently and the World IVF meeting and they have had half or as many as double the number of registrants they’ve had in the European meetings.  This is a trend and I think it’s for two reasons, firstly, Australians are very good attenders of meetings, they’re very enthusiastic learners, and also people do want to come to Australia and that has been the case recently.  So we believe 1,500 people is very realistic and that’s what we’re telling our trade representatives.”

Dr. Josh Copel:  “Tell me a little bit more about the ‘Meet the Professor Lunches.’  How large will those be and what sort of topics would you anticipate?”

Dr. Lachlan De Crespigny:  “The topics would tend to be what the speaker is addressing at the meeting.  There will be an informal gathering, lunch will be provided there, there will be no lecture, and there’ll be an opportunity for 15-20 people to explore issues in depth.  I particularly and I think many others like to have an opportunity to speak ones own mind and this is very close to that so that you can have really in depth discussion and get to know the professors.”

Dr. Josh Copel:  “So it will be a no holds barred open season on the speakers?”

Dr. Lachlan De Crespigny: “Yes, that’s right and I hope it will be just that.  There’s some people that can really quiz them and put them under pressure in a way that it can be more difficult to do in a larger forum.”

Dr. Josh Copel: “I always find those sessions to be a lot of fun on the receiving end, and I’ll be looking forward to that as well.  Thank you very much for your time, and we’ll look forward to seeing you.”