Conference notes

Apr 8, 2006

Last week, I heard Taking the Heat: Fighting to Join the NYFD, an NPR interview with a pioneering woman firefighter who is the subject of a new documentary. Today at the hotel, on my way to teach blogging at the AMA Medical Communications conference, I noticed another group of people were gathering for sessions—women firefighters from across the country were here, too, for a conference of Women in the Fire Service. I snapped this thought-provoking picture from one of their sessions:

Mary Moslander of LiveHealthier.com sat in in on my blogging session, and then impressed the heck out of me at a later session about new technologies. Mary has an excellent understanding of how to build an online community (she helped build WashingtonPost.com) by using social networking tools. Next to Mary was Bill Crounse, an M.D. who works for Microsoft and blogs about health.

Earlier in the day, Andrew Weil spoke about communicating about integrative medicine. He even had a dire prediction: “We will see the complete collapse of the health care system in this country” as baby boomers move into chronic illnesses and the “fat kids we’re raising” begin to suffer the complications of obesity. (Obesity was a topic at other sessions, too.) “Integrative medicine is the light at the end of the tunnel” because of it’s promise to lower costs of health care.

Anton Zuiker ☄