Yes, we're into the biggest medical conference (in terms of attendance) in Australia - the Australian Medical Students' Association (AMSA) CONVENTION.
Having been on the organising committee as a logistics officer and Chief Technologist (that is, excuse-for-an-IT-person) for some time now, I've been working my bottom off and having a fantastic time.
I thought I was under pressure when I was writing the registration system, and when we got three hundred signups in 72 hours. Wrong - although the Convention itself only started on Sunday afternoon, I have been on the go almost 24 hours a day since Saturday morning, taking a break only to (get this) play Zone3. What was I thinking? I'm taking a week off work to average five hours sleep a night, and work harder than I've had to for a long time.
It's worth it, so far - the whole thing has been awesome. Not only is everyone who's come from interstate and locally having a great time - delegates, speakers and the all-important sponsors - but I am too, which
Saturday and Sunday were registration/sign-in days, which merely reinforced the belief I acquired while assisting with the initial delegate registration forms and processes that even future doctors (hi Dr Skerrit) can be complete monkeys at times. I spent a lot of time in the bowels of both SCGH and the Sheraton Perth, and doing the things which I had originally intended to - driving vans, pushing big trolleys in and out of service elevators, and generally getting the opportunity to solve problems and yell at people at the same time. Lack of sleep, plus the UCC Zone3 event on Saturday night, plus physical and mental exertion, meant I ended up looking astonishingly tired and grumpy by 3pm on Sunday, as evidenced by this rather poor photo (I'm dead centre in the background, with a can of my problem-solver, Red Bull).
I wandered over to the accommodation after we were done, absolutely exhausted, about to collapse, and then Tim pressed a double vodka into my hands. Everything started to pick up from there.
The social program started on Sunday night, with The Life Aquatic (previously known as Naughty Nautical), at Fremantle Passenger Terminal - an absolutely massive venue, for an absolutely massive night, with Beez Neez on tap, a rocking cover band (who don't appear to have a website) called Milhouse, 12 delegates in the emergency department of the hospital, and the usual in Convention costume finery. The sight of some of the girls in sailor suits is one I will take to my grave, and I was rather pleased with my Guybrush Threepwood outfit. There are a few photos available, and I'll stick all mine online at the end of the week.
A few hours sleep on a bed with no blankets, and I was back at the Sheraton just after 0730 to kick off the academic program. Setting up some Intel iMacs, provided for free by Next Byte as a very impressive Internet cafe, gave everyone the opportunity to question my career choice; rolling out a standard operating environment in thirty seconds per machine by using tar(1) is a good crowd-pleaser.
As anyone who has organised a conference will tell you, there is an astonishing amount of work that goes on - even with thirty-four people on the committee, and people like the ever-honourable Steve Hicks helping out, we always felt short-handed. Handheld UHF radios were the order of the day and were astonishingly useful, despite the Sheraton's AV staff's condescension.
The speakers on Monday were excellent - Dr Barry Marshall (one of the UWA 2006 Noble laureates) was interesting, although I didn't get the impression he is a particularly affable person. Dr Grahame Wicks spoke about hypnosis, both the history and current practice. Again, a very interesting presentation, and as something of a 'believer' in hypnosis I enjoyed it, although I was hoping for a bit more hard science or at least statistics. A few minor AV stuff-ups, not many of which were my fault.
The tutorials and workshops all looked like fun, too, although I spent the time talking to sponsors, setting up presentations and being IT/AV on-call. With delegates split over five workshops, field trips, the sponsors' trade show, we were pretty short-staffed but had a lot of fun. The end-of-day debrief was hilarious - Christof, Dav and I spent the entire time trying to wind Ando (the convenor) up, and I'd love to put the minutes online publicly. (An excerpt: zorbas: can we get everyone a personalised goon bag? ando: NO.)
I've taken the evening off to chase up a few Convention and non-Convention things, and the plan was to get some sleep, but unfortunately it doesn't look like that's happened - I've still got a costume to find and some sort of musical instrument to acquire for leading a pub crawl group. This entry is now over 800 words long, and I haven't even described anything in detail. We're two days in, and I am loving it.
CONVENTION. ANAL PEOPLE STAY HOME.
