With our annual conference fast approaching, and the jam-packed programme of over 60 hours of scientific and clinical sessions now released, we take a look at a few of the things you can expect to discover in Brighton this year…

 

FUTURES

Following its launch in 2015, the popular ‘Futures’ series will return this year with a host of new sessions, all set to spark your career aspirations and help you scale those career hurdles.

 

Futures 1: MY FUTURE CAREER IN ENDOCRINOLOGY?

12.15–13.00, Monday 7 November

1.1 What has endocrinology done for me?

1.2 Endocrine careers: a trainee’s view

1.3 Why, where and when to do endocrinology research. Speaker: Society President Stephen O’Rahilly

 

Futures 2: MAPPING YOUR ROUTE THROUGH THE RESEARCH FUNDING MAZE

12.00–12.45, Tuesday 8 November

2.1 Starter grants and building your pilot data

2.2 A view from the funding body: avoiding pitfalls in grant applications

2.3 Maximising your chances in fellowship applications; writing and interviewing

 

JOIN THE DEBATE!

This house believes that prednisolone should be the first line for glucocorticoid replacement in adrenal insufficiency

18.30–19.15, Monday 7 November

Chair: Jeremy Tomlinson (Oxford)

Speaking FOR: Karim Meeran (London)

Speaking AGAINST: Stafford Lightman (Bristol)

 

SOCIETY FOR ENDOCRINOLOGY AGM 2016

Don’t miss your Society’s Annual General Meeting! Find out more about the Society’s highlights of the past year and plans for the future.

18.15–19.00, Tuesday 8 November

 

VIEW FROM DELEGATES

The 2016 Society for Endocrinology BES conference is just around the corner. Here, Programme Secretary Simon Pearce provides an introduction to the conference and three attendees tell us what they are looking forward to most.

 

VIEW FROM THE PROGRAMME SECRETARY – SIMON PEARCE

I’m very much looking forward to Brighton and the SfE BES 2016 programme. As I write, we have more than 140 speakers confirmed, including around 30 from overseas. They balance cutting edge advances in endocrine science with state of the art Continuing Professional Development updates for clinicians.

To highlight the many excellent clinical case reports in the meeting, we have introduced a prize for the top-scoring abstracts in this section. For the first time, and aiming to reduce lunchtime congestion at the poster displays, we will also have an electronic poster system for the remainder of the case report abstracts, allowing them to be accessible conveniently throughout the meeting.

This year, we are also pleased to run the conference back-to-back with the autumn meeting of the Association of British Clinical Diabetologists. Obesity, its pathogenesis and complications is an area of increasing overlap between our groups, and we are confident that a lot of content in each meeting will be of mutual interest.

On the basic science front, we have an excellent array of local and international plenary medallists, as well as a comparative endocrinology workshop and an expert view on endocrine disruptors.

Our focus has been to provide something for everyone: I hope to see you all in November!

 

A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE – TONY COLL

Like Graham Greene’s allegorical candy, which reads the same, however far down you bite, it is easy to consider the nature of things as unchanging. The humdrum of working life can leaden thinking into nothing – new doldrums. Time then to throw off your autumnal shackles and book your ticket to the seaside for a blast of endocrine enlivenment in a town bursting with colour and life!

If you’ve given up thinking about glucocorticoid therapies, sessions on how to uncouple the antiinflammatory benefits from the metabolic harm could be just the tonic.

If you really do blame your parents for everything that has gone awry in your life, a symposium on early life programming of disease risk will prove invaluable in helping you understand the mechanisms and deal with the consequences.

For the frustrated scientist who finds themselves wondering why all their grant money has gone on running a bed and breakfast for mice, an Applied Physiology Workshop aims to shine a light on using other model systems to unravel the complexities of endocrine physiology.

Suitably enriched, consolidate your revival with a few games of air hockey and ‘Whac-a-Mole’ on the pier, before raising a glass or two in a watering hole of your choosing (I believe there is more than one).

 

CLINICAL CONSIDERATIONS – AMIR SAM

My dilemma about which session to attend starts on the first morning, when a symposium on the challenges in pituitary disease partly clashes with a session on the late effects of cancer treatment. Other sessions which have caught my eye include the symposium on genetic understanding of endocrine disease and the debate on glucocorticoid replacement in adrenal insufficiency.

Professor Sir Steve Bloom’s Jubilee Medal Lecture ‘Gut and money, customer shrunk’ will be a fun and thought-provoking start to the second day. I am also looking forward to hearing about some commonly encountered grey areas in the workshop ‘Endocrinology at the edge of the reference range’.

The ‘How do I?’ workshops on Tuesday and Wednesday will cover a wide a range of clinically useful topics and are not to be missed. My last day is set to be rather thyroid-heavy, beginning with the ‘Clinical thyroidology update’ and ending in ‘A year in thyroid’!

 

EARLY CAREER OUTLOOK – ANNA MITCHELL

This year’s programme looks fantastic and offers something for everyone. Clinical Management Workshops always teach me something new to take back to my own practice. I also pick up pearls of wisdom at Meet the Expert sessions, so I’ll try to get to as many of those as I can.

For inspiration for future research projects, I’ll definitely attend some symposia (particularly on genetics!) and all the plenary lectures. It’s a struggle to get up in time for the early morning sessions, but it’s worth it for the ensuing ‘research envy’.

Many sessions this year particularly cater for early career members. For clinical trainees, the SCE exam ‘skills’ session is included for the first time, and shouldn’t be missed if the exam is on your horizon. All early career members will find plenty of useful, both at the Futures session on ‘My future career in endocrinology’, and at the Early Career Symposium ‘Launching your career in endocrinology – whatever it may be’.

Finally, we can look forward to the Early Career Quiz and Dinner. I’m pretty rubbish at the obscure quiz questions, but I always find myself next to someone nice (and clever!) who doesn’t care that I’m not contributing much to the team score!