Conference corner: Late ‘thank you’ notes

By Howard Rodenberg, MD, MPH, CCDS

As the holidays pass by, it turns out that I’m the guy who was supposed to write a thank you note but never did. The thank you note is to ACDIS for throwing another fine Annual Conference this past May, this time at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando. You should know the Gaylord Palms for two reasons. First, because the same gang owns the Opryland Hotel in Nashville. Second, because I like to think that the hotel is owned by Gaylord Sartain, who was a cast member of one of the best television shows ever. (Hee Haw, for the unenlightened.)

The décor of the Gaylord Palms does try to create a genuine Fake Florida Experience. But as a Floridian, it’s weird to see things you know reproduced out of context. For example, the resort has a well-done area simulating a forest stream, complete with live turtles and gators. To those of us who live here, it’s really just a reminder to not let the cat get too close to the pond. It’s probably like the tourist in Greenland who marvels at the glaciers and clear skies and crisp air, and the guy who runs the snack bar in Nuuk thinking, “Yep, still cold.”

My writing for ACDIS began with the 10th Annual Conference, and so it’s with gratitude to Brian Murphy, Melissa Varnavas, and Linnea Archibald for continuing to tolerate my mischief that I conduct a yearly review. Like so many of my colleagues, I went to the sessions to gather new ideas about CDI and to cringe at the word “journey” at least once an hour. (Okay, maybe that was just me.). After three years of conferences, however, it’s dawned on me that there are several take-home messages you’re guaranteed to hear in some way or another:

• Doctors are jerks
• Clinical validation is wonderful
• It’s all about quality
• It’s not about the money
• Doctors are jerks

Of these, at least three are lies. I’ll let you chose which ones for yourself.

(Distilling over fifty hours of educational offerings into five lines is kind of like saying you can encompass an entire general surgery residency in two phrases, “Cut to cure,” and “Nothing ever metastasized from formaldehyde.” Internal medicine is even easier. “Health is only the absence of a sufficient workup.”)

The academic side of the week being covered, let’s turn to what really interests me...free stuff.

This Third Edition of the Exhibitor Gift Catalogue is sparser than years past. I think some of it has to do with the location. Orlando is not a lawless crapshoot like Vegas, and it lacks any sense of history or heritage like San Antonio. It’s the perfect American city of the late 20th century: bland, featureless, a place with no reason to be that would still be a cluster of orange groves without the presence of the famous mouse. So, there’s not very much in the way of local trinkets or memorabilia to pass around, the way there were dice in Las Vegas and beer coozies in Texas.

Instead, the exhibitors got creative. This year was not about stuff but about experiences, embracing the ethos of living in the moment. And since we exit this world with only memories and not a pen with the ACDIS logo, it seemed fitting that ephemeral experience dominated the Exhibit Hall.

So rather than detailing a catalog of pens, pencils, and lip balm, here’s the highlights of what you could do in between learning, networking, and a lot of other participles.

Whack-a-Payer

This was fun. It’s kind of like Whack-a-Mole, except that the little holes from whence emerge the furballs are now labeled “Cotiviti,” “Blue Cross Blue Shield,” “Humana,” and the like. This actually winds up making the game more difficult, because once you figure out who the rodents represent you, don’t want to just bop them gently on the head. And so rather than light taps and moving on to insure the best score, you whack…whack…WHACK that third party private payer mole with all your might, your eyes awash with tears of rage such that you can’t even see where the next one pops up. At the end, you’re emotionally purged and able to go placidly amongst your peers until the next denial.

Therapy dogs

Best thing ever. Just dogs sitting there waiting to be petted. Dogs are great. A person who doesn’t love dogs should be forced to live with cats, whom everyone knows will not mourn you when you are gone and will eat your face off if you die alone.

The photo booth

This is where you get to hold up a foam accessory such as sunglasses, mouse ears, or a crown, and get your picture taken with it. There’s nothing really wrong with the photo booth, but is it necessary in the Exhibit Hall? When you really need it is after everyone’s had a drink and loosened up, and the resultant pictorial documentation of behaviors becomes a team-building exercise in trust.

Caricature drawings

I thought this kind of thing was fun until I had a new one done a few years back at another event. I didn’t like the nose. Who knew it was so big? Everyone except me, apparently. Soul-crushing.

The toy-filled Medovent tote bags

I wasn’t going to name any vendors, but I feel so badly about this that I wanted to give props when I could. They were there with tubs full of toys and art supplies—pencils, crayons, little cans of Play-Doh, and the like. So I start loading up my backpack until someone stopped me and pointed out that the activity was to fill bags with toys to give to a Children’s Hospital. It was awful. I put back the crayons and Play-Doh and fled, turning my name tag over at the same time. The next two days I wore jeans and tee-shirts, didn’t shave, and kept my sunglasses on indoors so I might not be spotted.

The cornhole game

I truly do not understand the concept of cornhole. In my day, it was simply a beanbag toss, usually with a clown face painted on the board. I have never seen any corn involved, and as far as I know, corn does not have hole. I know of a pie hole and a cake hole, but the concept of a corn hole and what it has to do with a beanbag toss remains a mystery. Someone please educate me. For the record, I scored three out of five.

Skee-Ball

This game I understand, and I’m not too bad at it. I’m usually well over 500 points with eight rolls. However, as opposed to my usual Skee-Ball venues, here there were no little red tickets to collect at the end of the game. Those tickets...often 1200 of them, accumulated after $53.00 of play, get you a small two-inch faded green plastic soldier attached to a flimsy parachute made from counterfeit Saran Wrap. Disappointing. I don’t play for challenge, skill-building, or glory. I play for loot.

Other attractions

One additional note for next year’s Conference Planning Committee. Rice Krispy treats are the best inter-session treats ever. Homemade, not pre-packaged, no M&M’s, and no fakes using Fruity Pebbles. Small parfaits, especially those which are mini pecan pies, are a very close second. And there must always be Coke. Not Pepsi. Coke.

I would be remiss if I didn’t give a shout-out to two of my Baptist Health-Jacksonville colleagues and their poster presentations. Dr. Audrey Mobley, our CDI lead, presented a poster detailing the reality of clinical validation. And, after endless hours of contemplation, Dr. Douglas Campbell developed a logo for internal marketing called DOC ASAP. The version we brought to ACDIS was a five-foot-high foam board cutout of a cartoon physician with a lightning bolt in one hand and the other arm reaching towards the sky, an upright finger exhorting providers to DOCument As Specific As Possible. We took care to ensure it was the index finger.

We’re back in Vegas for 2020. Maybe I can convince my girlfriend (the Beloved Dental Empress) to come along and take in all that is CDI. I give that fourteen minutes before she’s looking for the pool. (Three minutes of interest, eleven more just to be polite.). Maybe she’ll stay longer if she can play Whack-A-Payer. Turns out dentists hate insurance companies too.

Editor’s note: Rodenberg is the adult physician advisor for CDI at Baptist Health in Jacksonville, Florida. Contact him at howard.rodenberg@bmcjax.com or follow his personal blog at writingwithscissors.blogspot.com. Advice given is general. Readers should consult professional counsel for specific legal, ethical, clinical, or coding questions. Opinions expressed are that of the author and do not represent HCPro or ACDIS.