One of the core ideals of DevelopingEM is the supported attendance of local delegates.
This support has taken different forms depending on the regional context of each conference.
For DevelopingEM 2020 the situation in Colombia somewhat mirrored the EM developmental stage in Sri Lanka in 2016 with
- an established and internationally recognised EM society- ACEM – governing the selection of local delegates for each component of the conference
- all Colombian registrations being complimentary with no individual being invoiced by DevelopingEM
What this will look like in practice will be the complimentary registration of
- 40 Colombian clinicians to each day of the plenary sessions of the conference
- 40 Colombian attendees for each of the two social functions.
- 10 Colombian delegates for each of the four pre-conference workshops
- 10-15 Colombian clinician attendees to the Regional EM Development Forum
With the assistance of our friends from EMRAP we will also be hosting a Nursing Workshop. This will see the complimentary registration of
- 16 Colombian emergency nurse clinicians
What we saw with this model in Sri Lanka was that in fact the total delegate attendance number was much higher than the 40 per day base number with different clinicians attending different sessions depending on their special interests.
In Sri Lanka the total number of local clinicians involved in one way or another was 185 and we certainly hope to have at least 100 different Colombian clinicians involved in a similar fashion this year. This could represent a substantial percentage of the total recognised emergency specialists and trainees in the country involved in DevelopingEM.
From a regional perspective we have worked very hard with experts across Central and South America to select a group of emergency practitioners and then support their attendance.
A six month process of multi round invitations was concluded in November.
A total of 38 clinicians from 23 countries were invited to attend with a stratified support program based on country of origin.
14 clinicians responded to our original offers and received either registration discounts, complimentary registration or complimentary registration and travel/accommodation support depending upon their country of origin. Each of these 14 clinicians also received a complimentary workshop of their choice and the opportunity to attend the regional forum.
Unfortunately we have a set budget with limited income streams and so have to place an initial limit on regional delegate support to be financially responsible.
Enquiries after the closure of offers are offered the same same discounted rate on the 3 day conference and social functions as are internationally based trainees. This just about covers our costs and is just over a 50% discount on the international rate. At present 2 regional clinicians are in this group and 1 is seeking assistance with funding from a charitable organisation.
A further 6 regional clinicians are involved in workshop and plenary faculty positions and as for all our faculty they have the option of choosing between zero and 100% of their registration fee.
So in total we have 22 regional attendees on a mix of support packages.
These attendees represent the following countries
- Barbados
- Chile
- Costa Rica
- Jamaica
- Guatemala
- St Lucia
- Mexico
- Brazil
- Peru
- Guyana
- Nicaragua
- Cuba
- Venezuela
and
- Haiti
We must acknowledge the direct support of two organisations who this year are helping us with supporting the attendance of our regional colleagues.
The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine is contributing to approximately 15% of the total regional support and EMRAP is assisting with travel costs for several of the regional delegates. We remain enormously grateful to these enlightened organisations as each dollar we are save means that we can further expand our support.
Over the years the enthusiasm and expertise of our regional colleagues has been an absolute inspiration to our organisation and in large part it is their impact that keeps us going as a conference organising group.
In the end our international delegates and partners allows this to occur with over a quarter of your fees going towards supporting our regional colleagues.
Ultimately its a joint effort and we think well worth it.
Register now if you want to help bring even more people to #DevEM2020.
