Cover Story
Reflections on the
Upper Midwest Audiology Conference 2012
by CE Committee Chair, Sarah Kahley, AuD
Every year, the dedicated Audiologists on the Continuing Education (CE) Committee strive to improve the next conference over what we have presented in previous years. The two areas to which we have given specific attention to, and still have been unable to find a solution that benefits everyone, are the Friday night President’s Reception and the exhibit hall. The reality is if attendees stopped visiting exhibitors, our conference would be quite a bit more expensive to attend and/or the quality of the conference would decrease significantly. There are always new sales reps to meet and there is always new product and innovations that the exhibitors have to present. But what is the best way to get you, the attendee, that information? We have tried many different ways such as lunch with the exhibitors, punch cards for prizes, round robins, happy hour, etc.
We are always looking for new ideas to try so if you have attended another conference somewhere that has a system that works well, we’d love to hear your ideas! A recent survey of exhibitors has also provided several options for the CE committee to consider. Whatever changes we make for future conferences, please know that it is an attempt to bring you the best possible exhibit hall. So, if you feel strongly about certain exhibit hall options, please contact the committee with your ideas (or maybe join the committee!).
Although you should look for further changes to the Friday night agenda to occur in the future, I do want to applaud everyone who stayed late on Friday night (and by late I mean 8:30 or 9 pm) this year! We had the largest group of attendees ever to attend the President’s reception, and awards and honors ceremony. For the first time in many years we actually ran out of dessert! I’m usually eating 4 or 5 desserts at the end of Friday night because I don’t want to see them go to waste. And this year I am very pleased to say that I didn’t get any. If you have never had the opportunity before to stay on Friday evening for this very fun and rewarding event, please try to take the time next year. I know we are all busy, have families and other events going on in our lives; however, there are options to consider. Perhaps consider bringing your family to the Friday night events or better yet book a room and let them swim in the pool and relax while you attend the one event a year in Minnesota where we pat ourselves on the back and can truly enjoy our profession and other professionals in our field. And please know if you decide to stay past 9 pm, what happens at UMAC, stays at UMAC!
Of course, I need to gush about our fantastic presenters and award recipients. To begin, congratulations to John Coverstone, Kathy Kerst and Katie Pitts. You are all truly deserving of awards and honors from MAA (to read more on them visit the Spotlight section in this newsletter). Without individual dedication, MAA or audiology in Minnesota would not be where it is today. We did also have a few words for Richard Brown, one of the founders of MAA, who passed away recently. Richard was our annual photographer, and always was able to catch great candid and posed shots for our memory books.
I must also rave about the presentations this year. Although I know we are not going to be able to meet the strictest standards in continuing education with just our one annual conference, we can at least try to meet the Tier One standards of 15 hours every three years, with at least three of those in ethics. In her ethics presentation Think Globally, Act Locally, Angela Shoup did a tremendous job keeping us all highly interested in a topic that is not always number one in everyone’s hearts. Friday afternoon, Laurel Gregory got us in touch with our inner audiologist and helped us “Recharge our Audiology Battery”. Don Marsh ended our Friday afternoon with marketing ideas in a challenging economy. Many attendees stayed for the optional business meeting to discuss audiologist’s assistants.
In two related presentations, Deborah von Hapsburg and Brian Urban started our Saturday morning presentations with ideas for Motivational Interviewing and Asking the Right Questions. After lunch Saturday, Erica Friedland addressed a very relevant topic which is hot in Minnesota right now, Audiology Assistants. There is a lot of debate on this topic right now, including both if or how assistants should be regulated in Minnesota. If this is an important topic to you, please contact the Government Relations Committee. We finished up Saturday afternoon with yet another fantastic Coding and Reimbursement presentation by Deb Abel. C & R is forever changing, as we seem to be able to have annual updates on this topic alone.
There are so many people who help out with this annual event who don’t get enough recognition. There are always many student volunteers who give of their time and also collect donations for the silent auction. The exhibitors who attend each year, always with a smile, and attendees, who have so many other CE options to choose from including online CEUs or getting hours from reading a book. I truly believe that attending a live course in person benefits the attendee so much more than recorded webinars or book readings. As long as there is someone who agrees, we will do our best to present to you the best Upper Midwest Audiology Conference we can. Hope you can join us in 2013. Save the date for the Upper Midwest Audiology Conference 2013 on February 22 and 23.
