Kelly Green, MD, “cannot wait” to again network with fellow physicians and medical students during this year’s iteration of the Texas Medical Association’s annual conference, TexMed.
Last year, Dr. Green joined the event’s first Specialty Showcase, hosted by TMA’s Medical Student Section (MSS) on the Thursday before the conference, as a mentor for medical students to learn about her specialty.
The showcase – designed much like “speed dating,” as MSS Executive Council Chair Harinandan Sainath describes it – was added to the conference’s schedule last year to meet the needs of its medical student attendees.
Originally concerned “no one would be interested in eyeballs,” Dr. Green said she didn’t expect many students to visit her table. To her surprise, she spoke to several curious medical students during the event and in the weeks after, providing them with resources and advice on private practice, ophthalmology, and residency.
The Marble Falls ophthalmologist says the success of the showcase was due in part to TexMed’s reorganized schedule – also implemented last year – which allowed attendees time to network or attend specialty CME without missing major TexMed or business events, like the opening session of the House of Delegates (HOD).
For instance, TexMed 2024 was the first time the conference schedule featured the HOD and opening general session CME Friday morning instead of Friday afternoon, followed by reference committee meetings at noon. The schedule flip came after members expressed difficulty attending CME presentations and other activities later in the day, TMA Conferences and Events Director Victoria Van de Ryt says.
TMA will again implement exciting changes to TexMed this year – with its theme Advocate, Educate, Innovate – that directly respond to member interests, such as new CME submitted by TMA members and exciting presentations from keynote speakers that provide both entertainment and education to members. A new badging system will provide faster check-ins for members and important feedback for TMA to continue to improve physicians’ experience at TexMed.
These benefits – and others, such as the continuation of the Specialty Showcase and the second iteration of the event’s Poster Session – are intended to provide a meaningful experience to students and physicians attending the conference and insight to TMA on their interests for future events.
“TexMed’s ability to shift to meet members’ needs is why the conference gets better and better every year,” Dr. Green said.
TMA Speaker of the House of Delegates Bradford W. Holland, MD, is “extremely pleased” by how TexMed grows each year to meet the needs of its members. He says the event is designed to be flexible – much like medicine itself – to provide both an efficient and educational experience to attendees.
For example, he says, the convention’s multiple CME offerings are tailored each year to respond to emerging trends in medicine. This evolution is “extremely important” to members eager to stay abreast of health care updates, the Waco otolaryngologist said.
Likewise, recent considerations for child care at future TexMed events may offer opportunities for members to attend with their young children.
“If we ask Texas doctors to give up time to come to TexMed, we want to guarantee that they have a solid educational experience,” Dr. Holland told Texas Medicine.
With that sentiment in mind, TMA called upon its members last year to submit CME programming suggestions for TexMed 2025. From their submissions, TMA plans to offer multiple programming tracks centered on:
- Leadership and professional development;
- Physician health and wellness;
- Population health and public health; and
- Business of medicine, such as practice help and management, health technologies, and practice quality improvement, and career management.
Although CME submissions were generally evenly distributed across these key areas, the business of medicine garnered the most bids. These submissions follow a highly attended panel at TMA’s Business of Medicine Conference last October, “Ask the Expert: The Business of Personal Finance.”
“These submissions … are just one way we track what’s important to our members,” said TMA Manager of Educational Development Services Sue Mullen.
TexMed also will provide a space for specialty societies to present on the Thursday before the conference officially begins and a mixer, scheduled for that night, hosted by all sections and sponsored by TMA Insurance Trust.
One such society, the Texas Academy of Family Physicians (TAFP), plans to offer a three-hour presentation on topics TAFP Chief Operating Officer Kathy McCarthy calls the academy’s “bread and butter”: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other lung illnesses, polypharmacy and the elderly, and dermatology.
Ms. McCarthy said TAFP presenting at TexMed was a “choice that made sense.”
“TexMed is the perfect opportunity to provide education valuable to our members,” she said. “I once heard the advice to go to where your members are. We know our members go to TexMed.”
Thursday will also host this year’s rendition of the Specialty Showcase, the first of many events added to the schedule to provide medical student attendees an opportunity to engage with experienced physicians, learn about different specialties, and actively participate and engage with peers at TexMed.
In addition, TMA will again host the published work of medical students, residents, and physicians during the conference’s poster session.
Mr. Sainath calls the poster session a “large scale science fair” that gives medical student members and others the chance to display recent studies and findings completed during their training. Conference-goers are invited to examine these findings on posters hung through the halls of TexMed.
“TexMed can sometimes feel tailored to residents or physicians in later career stages,” Mr. Sainath said. “So, [MSS] came up with activities that would encourage networking between students and physicians and generally boost student involvement.”
“TMA supported these goals 100%,” he added.
Little Elm internist John Flores, MD, is excited for another TexMed staple: keynote presentations.
Although TMA’s Vice Speaker of the House is usually busy with HOD during the convention, he still looks forward to education on primary care and artificial intelligence (AI), for instance.
TexMed will close with an appearance by YouTube sensation and philanthropist “Dr. Mike.” A family physician, Mikhail “Mike” Oskarovich Varshavski went viral in 2015 for medically themed entertainment videos and debunking false medical claims.
Since 2016, Dr. Glaucomflecken has made medical satire skits on X, TikTok, and YouTube.
Members interested in more social opportunities can also attend the TMA Foundation’s 32nd annual gala, which will incorporate a celebration of the great outdoors with its theme, Adventure!, while bringing physicians together to discuss health care, advocacy, and now, nature.
“TexMed meetings can be both effective … and entertaining,” Dr. Flores said. “We tailor our keynote presentations to the interests of our audience. Sometimes that means thinking outside the box.”
The digital business card
A new badging system designed to expedite members’ navigation of the event and provide feedback to TMA on meetings and CME attendance will further revamp TexMed.
The change, which TMA’s Board of Trustees approved last year, was created to circumvent the somewhat lengthy process of member check-ins before the conference.
In the past, members would have to wait in line for their badge before checking in. Furthermore, the badges were strictly designed for identification and credentialing purposes only, meaning they did not have capabilities that could help TMA gather information for future conferences.
This year, members can save time at check-in by utilizing a QR code – included in their TexMed registration confirmation – at the event’s quick scan kiosk. There, they can print their new badge at the self-service station before heading into the HOD’s opening session.
The new badge will contain information already within attendees’ membership profiles – the same information HOD uses for credentialing – such as their specialty and contact information. When scanned, the badges will provide this information and more, like how many members are attending TexMed and what events they find value in, directly to TMA staff so that the association can continue to improve the conference each year.
Members can even use their new badges to enter a raffle set to be drawn on the last day of the convention. Every member who scans into TexMed’s general session will be entered into the door prize drawing.
“It’s the digital equivalent of exchanging your business card,” Ms. Van de Ryt explained. “Our badging is coming into the modern age. However, the conference will still have our wonderful TMA staff there to assist for those who don’t have their QR code or just prefer it the old-fashioned way.”
Alisa Pierce
Reporter, Division of Communications and Marketing
(512) 370-1469