You can have fun learning!

I have been back from running the ASET 2012 Annual Conference in St. Paul for a couple of weeks, but have not had time to update my blog in a while.

I am still riding the wave of energy created by the wonderful experience.  There was lots of hands-on learning and lots of positive energy!

We tried a new three-day meeting format, dropping the Wed. afternoon session from years past.  We managed to pack everything into three days, and it seems like attendees gave us a “thumbs up” on this new program schedule!  So, we’ll be continuing on with this next year for the 2013 Annual Conference in Reno.

At this conference, we seemed to capitalize on “hands-on” interactive workshops and learning!  This picture is from the IONM Minimally Invasive Sundown Seminar.  You might call it “You are the surgeon”!  There was a simulated model of an open spine surgery with a full array of surgical instruments.  Techs were able to see and feel what the surgeon feels as the spine is manipulated. (Special Thanks to Medtronic for putting this together!)

We also had a great ICU EEG Trending Workshop!  Every participant with a laptop received a flash drive with trending software worked along with the instructor to trend EEG patterns.  (Special Thanks to Persyst for providing this workshop!)

In other sessions, techs were trying out Trans-cranial Doppler, NCS and all three modalities of Evoked Potentials.

All this and we still had time for the opening reception in the exhibit hall and a great Saturday night riverboat cruise with our own ASET band, “The Dendrites!”

Over the next two weeks, I will be tallying the attendee evaluations from St. Paul.  I  will use the feedback from the comments to help me plan content for next year.  I rely on feedback to ensure that the annual conference program has meaningful learning experiences for our members.

Thanks to all of you who attended the conference in St. Paul!  It was great to see all those smiling faces and I hope to see you all next year in Reno!

Brain Surge TCD, ICU, IONM!!

 

How cool is this??  A ride just for neurodiagnostic technologists!  This ride is at the Mall of America’s Nickelodeon Universe, just a 15 minute ride away from the ASET Annual Conference in St. Paul, MN.

So, if you are coming to this year’s annual conference, and you are looking for a fun way to spend an evening, here is something fun to do!   I’ll be part of a group going out to ride on the Brain surge before the start of our conference which I just over two weeks away!  I could not resist the opportunity for the photo-op of having all the riders being technologists with brain T-shirts on!  There is a full amusement park in this mall, with roller coasters, in addition to a wide variety of stores and restaurants.

Other attractions not to miss at this annual conference are some of our specialty workshops!

On Thursday, Aug. 2^nd, in the ICU Course, we have an interactive workshop on EEG Trending software.  If you can bring your laptop to this workshop, you will be given a flash drive with trending software so that you can view and manipulate EEG samples in a live action exercise with the workshop facilitators.

On Friday, our Sundown Seminars include a really special IONM workshop!  We’ll have a surgeon and neurophysiologist Ph.D,CNIM on hand to demonstrate minimally invasive techniques.  They will be using surgical training simulators, which allow you to view a surgical field of the spine during the workshop.

We also have a really great workshop on TCD!  We have two excellent facilitators and two TCD work stations for hands-on practice.  This will be an ideal follow-up to the ICU course lecture on Thursday, on the topic of using TCD in the ICU.  This workshop will also be excellent for those who use TCD in IONM.

We also have two evening social events this year: the Thursday evening exhibit hall reception and the Saturday evening chartered riverboat cruise!  The entire riverboat has been reserved for ASET conference attendees and their guests.  We have well over 100 attendees signed up, so this promises to be a really wonderful get-together! 

This is likely to be my last blog entry before I travel to St. Paul, so I look forward to seeing you there!  It is not too late to register for this meeting!  Don’t miss a great program and great fun!

If you are involved in ASET’s Alternative Reality Game, Fantastic Neuro-Voyage, please view on of my last two posts to read last month’s clue!

How does ASET Select Annual Conference locations?

I have received more than a few comments about the location of the 2012 Annual Conference in St. Paul, MN.  Some people are puzzled by our selection of this location.  They ask: “Why St. Paul?”  Being from the East Coast myself, I will admit to having had a bit of an elitist attitude about other areas of the country in years past.  It seems like folks from the West Coast are prone to the same kind of thinking.  We tend to think that both coasts are great!  But the Midwest?? Images of corn fields, prairies, cities where things are produced that we use, but not many places we would want to visit.  I get the impression from folks in Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, that the only city they are interested in visiting in this area of the country would be Chicago!  In my role for ASET, I have had the opportunity to visit some really lovely cities in the Midwest.  It has been a pleasant revelation. 

An official representative of ASET conducts a site visit to the city and the hotels we are considering for future ASET conferences, prior to signing any contracts.  St. Paul offers a nice, clean, walkable downtown, a riverfront hotel, and the Mall of America is easily accessible.  The geographic location means that it won’t be a transcontinental flight for either East coast or West coast attendees.

So why not Chicago??  The bottom line is that hotel rooms and meeting spaces in Chicago, Boston  and New York City are way too expensive for us.  We strive to select meeting locations that will include affordable hotel rooms for attendees, and reasonable prices for meeting spaces, as well as for the catered food and beverages we must order.  We understand that many techs are paying their own way to meetings these days, and that if funds are available, they are limited.  So, to avoid increasing registration fees we must shop for the most economically feasible meeting locations.  Some hotels offer us better deals than others, and some cities are outside of our price range.

We also try to rotate the annual conference location through various regions of America, so that all of our members will have a chance of attending a fairly local meeting at some point. 

Here is my checklist of important factors to be considered when choosing a city for a future ASET Annual Conference:

·        Geographic location is selected in reference to past and future meeting sites

·        Airport access must be convenient and also offer affordable ground transportation to our meeting site

·        Large medical centers within driving distance to help support the conference with potential speakers and local attendees

·        Reasonable hotel room rates for our attendees and good prices on meeting space and food.

·        Other attractive features: family destinations with local attractions, or resort amenities, entertainment and restaurants that will be interesting for our guests.

So, please consider coming to the ASET 2012 Annual Conference in St. Paul, and rethink any prior thoughts you may have about this lovely city.  I am so pleased that for the first time in years, we are able to include a Saturday night social excursion, a dinner cruise on a riverboat.  We have chartered the entire boat, so this will be a very special event.  Please don’t miss it!

And here is the ARG clue for those of you who did not read it in my last blog entry:

 Fantastic Neuro-Voyage Mission Clue # 2:
The Fantastic Neuro-Voyage team is having trouble navigating against the flow of blood as they are nearing the heart. Flow from the heart is too strong for the nuclear engines to overcome. They have sent a message to the support team of scientists and physicians about what can be done to overcome the powerful force of the blood flow against the small size of their vessel.

How can I improve ASET’s educational opportunities for you?

I really need to know what you like about ASET’s educational resources, and what you would like us to change.  What can we add to make education more pertinent to you?  How can we make our educational resources more accessible?   At the Mid-year ASET Board of Trustees meeting, a very astute facilitator spoke of association members as “owners”, just as stock holders “own” a company.  So, in that role, what instructions would you give to me to improve our “products”?  I will listen to your opinions and requests and try to incorporate as much as possible into future ASET educational initiatives. 

ASET Education encompasses many areas of interest and methods of delivery:

•         ASET Annual Conference – Special Lectures, Courses, Abstracts
•         Spring and Fall Seminar Courses
•         On-Line Courses
•         Webinars
•         Publications
•         Support of Formal Education Programs
•         Connections with other associations: ACNS, AES, CoA-NDT, and many others

We have just posted a member satisfaction survey on the ASET home page.  Please take a few moments and fill out the survey.  I had the opportunity to compose questions related to education and it will really mean a great deal to me, if you can tell me more about what you want from ASET.  You make a difference in your patients’ lives and I want to make a difference in yours!

Here is the link to the survey: www.aset.org/membersurvey

Thanks in advance for taking the time to provide us with feedback!

 Fantastic Neuro-Voyage Mission Clue # 2:
The Fantastic Neuro-Voyage team is having trouble navigating against the flow of blood as they are nearing the heart.  Flow from the heart is too strong for the nuclear engines to overcome.  They have sent a message to the support team of scientists and physicians about what can be done to overcome the powerful force of the blood flow against the small size of their vessel.

                 

Incredible Imagery of the Brain

 

No, it is not a Mohawk hair-do!  It is the latest imagery that helps us understand brain structure and function!  This NPR article shows the connecting pathways within the brain.  Just look at the corpus callosum!  How did they do that?  It is so exciting to be in a field related to neurology.  I have never tired of looking at EEGs, thinking about how fascinating it is to view brain function on a daily basis. And in the 21^st Century, we have rapid technological advances, which will improve the way in which we can capture images of the brain at work.  To view or listen to the full NPR piece, follow this link for the article “Your Brain is Like Manhattan.”

 http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/03/29/149629657/how-your-brain-is-like-manhattan?ps=sh_stcathdl

At the ASET 2012 Annual Conference in St. Paul, we will feature educational events on another high-tech brain imagery process:  MEG, or Magnetoencephalography.  In addition to scientific platform presentation about the use of MEG to evaluate post-resection seizures, there will be a Sundown Seminar on MEG utilization and technology.  There are over 40 MEG machines in the United States now, and it is a growing and valid diagnostic tool.  If you work in a comprehensive epilepsy center, chances are that sometime in the future, a MEG will be coming to your institution.  EEG technologists who want to work in an advanced role and do something new and challenging should attend this workshop and find out more about it.  Electrodes must be applied for these studies, so who better than neurodiagnostic technologists to work in MEG departments!