Seeing Old Friends and Colleagues

Admittedly, the "old" refers to mostly to the length of time we have been friends or colleagues, but that correlates highly (and significantly) with our ages. I just got home from Denver for the APHA annual meeting, with a theme of social justice.

This year I went feeling relaxed and accepting, a definite change from my usual feeling of obligation, boredom and exasperation with this meeting. The fact that the meeting has 12,000 attendees and nearly 5000 presentations given at a convention center and several surrounding hotels does not give this meeting a feeling of intimacy. Nonetheless, connections are made, usually in hallways, bathrooms, receptions or lobbies.

I gave two presentations: one an interim report on the AHRQ funded grant for public health nursing research agenda, the other on some preliminary findings from the KRISP project. Both were nicely attended, generated questions (always a sign that the presentation was good; no one asks questions when the presentation is badly done), and fit well with the overall session theme.

As for seeing "old" friends, that was wonderful. Some had been former doctoral students. Some had been former co-students when I was in my doctoral program. Some had been co-authors/co-investigators on various projects.  As for seeing colleagues, that too was wonderful.  Some are current co-authors/co-investigators. Some had been consultants on earlier projects.  Admittedly, it does take years of going regularly to build up this network.

The getting caught up usually starts with "How are you?" to which the response is a measured "Fine. Good" accompanied with a slight nod. The true answer is always in the non-verbal and you need to read that carefully as the cue for where to go next in the conversation.  Eventually, the conversation gets past the gossip about who-is-now-where-doing-what to the spouse and children updates. A few conversations might get to the topic of what we can work on together next. I find those conversations most rewarding.

What was different for me this year was my attitude, not the altitude... I webnt to the conference expecting to see people, expecting to shake hands and make heads shake. I went to the conference with a commitment and my passion pinned to my name badge.  And, I went ready to go with the rhythm of the meeting. I went ready to make new friends and colleagues. I went ready to have sore feet and eat conference food. I went ready to work.

To quote myself, some conferences you go to in order to disseminate and be of service. Some conferences you go to be renewed and stimulated. As facutly we need to go to both types. This year, for me, APHA was in the being of service category.