Dr Subani Chandra on the Value of In-Person Connections During CHEST 2022

Subani Chandra, MD, FCCP, the chair of the Scientific Program Committee for CHEST 2022, discusses the first in-person meeting in 3 years and how attending it in person provides busy professionals a chance to escape the clinic and the office for the opportunity to meet with colleagues, some of whom they might only see once a year.

Transcript

What are you looking forward to in CHEST 2022, and what do you want participants to come away with?

Oh my gosh, looking forward to so much. As obviously you've heard, it's the first in-person meeting in 3 years. But I loved your question about, “What do I want participants to come away with?” I think about this a lot. And I feel like when I have left prior CHEST meetings, the most memorable moments are, I mean, I always feel energized, so I want them to feel energized. I want them to feel excited about the amazing things they do every day that seem like routine to us, but they're really amazing things. I want them to feel recharged. I want them to feel creative and full of ideas that they have learned or seen, and want to do when they get back home, whether that be in teaching, whether that be in how they teach, what they teach, how they interact with patients, or how they connect with colleagues. And I want them to take a wealth of latest clinical updates, the implementation of the latest research findings, practice-changing stuff, and use that as soon as they're back to seeing patients. You should feel more energized and excited at the end of the meeting than when you came in.

It's a luxurious time, honestly, for health care providers, because we're constantly juggling so many things in our everyday life. And that juggle, that hustle becomes routine. So, when you go to a meeting, even though it's busy in some ways, it inherently gives you permission to put an away message on your email. To put one of those balls down that you're juggling, and focus on something that enriches you, both personally and as a provider, as a clinician, as someone in the health care sphere, and I think particularly now we need that.