MAFP 32nd Annual FM Update "Campfire style!"

(Some musings from MAFP President Sue Cheff MD & photo credit D. Halbach)

April 2024 arrived as the proverbial roaring lion. This massive snow event did not stop the MAFP from plowing through to hold our 32nd Annual Family Medicine Update. In fact, we did what Family Docs do-we rolled up our sleeves, kept our focus, innovated, and improvised, and we did it together. It took many hands and the especially quick thinking of our Executive Director and Education Committee to quickly adapt our meeting from entirely in person, to hybrid, and to communicate that broadly while in the middle of a power outage.

We were grateful for the line workers who traveled to Maine from as far away as Ohio and Canada (Quebec & New Brunswick) as well as from our neighboring New England states. Many of these crews were also staying at our hotel, which gave us hope.

For those of us who had arrived safely the evening prior, we found ourselves the morning of our KSA in a cold, dark room, huddled together over the fading light of our phones and laptops. Campfire style. We know that in-person gatherings can be more engaging, more fluid, and more energizing than our usual zoom style meetings. In this case, faced with uncertainty and some adversity, we found ourselves in perhaps a richer learning environment, without the ability to ask Dr Google or check the hyperlinks for the references needed to answer the questions.

We completed the KSA as a group, each contributing knowledge and expertise, puzzling through together, and finished strong.

Thursday afternoon - still no power, lights or projection and missing 2 of our scheduled speakers, we soldiered on filling in the absent speaker slots with speakers who were scheduled for Friday, but were already on site. When the conference was over we had completed all of our sessions and awarded all of the scheduled CME,

We had a stellar line up of presenters with excellent content.

More Pictures & Articles HERE

Topics ran the gamut from Pediatrics to Geriatrics to Internal Medicine to Behavioral Health to Health Equity and Hospital medicine to office-based to "Zebras" and everything in between! The rest of the conference progressed with typical snow storm glitches in power, and many rearrangements in the schedule to account for stuck travelers, including several speakers, as well as the overall unpredictability of the situation. 

We were fortunate that our invited guest, Dr. Steven Furr, President of the AAFP, was able to fly in from Alabama before the storm really got going, and participated as scheduled.

Family physicians are probably some of the most patient, adaptable, flexible, unflappable, professionals around. Thank you to our members and attendees for weathering this literal storm with us. Thank you to the MAFP for yet another successful Annual Family Medicine Update, “Campfire Style”.

(Pictured above - Thursday mornings KSA by battery operated lanterns, emergency lighting and fading laptops screens!)

Some Evaluation Form comments from attendees:

From a first-time attendee - “This was my first time attending. Overall the conference was great. I so appreciate the ability of the conference committee to adjust and make backup plans and flexible options to continue to participate in the conference. I look forward to attending again in the future”

Others that have regularly attended said things like -

“Amazing job pulling it all together despite the storm” “I came for the networking, and loved how easily we adapted to the power loss!! Not a moment wasted” “Quick pivot to hybrid was excellent” “I’ve attended this conference for over 30 years! -good lectures, networking, and support of MAFP” “love the broad representation of FM topics” “the Education Committee & Deborah made an amazing pivot given all the complications of the storm, both in leading up to the meeting & then the day of – it made the meeting memorable and endearing and helped solidify our identity as the physicians most capable of solving problems for our patients, communities and systems”