DevelopingEM has never been designed as a conference that could happen anywhere.
The destination matters.
We deliberately take DevelopingEM to places where emergency medicine is evolving, where local and international clinicians can learn from one another — and where getting out of the conference room is part of understanding the place we have come to.
In November, that place is Saint Lucia.
And if you are travelling halfway around the world to join us, our advice is simple:
Do not just fly in, attend the conference and fly home.
Give Saint Lucia a little more time.
Start in the north
DevelopingEM is based at the Royalton Saint Lucia in the north of the island, close to Gros Islet and Rodney Bay.
That makes the conference a good base for exploring the northern end of Saint Lucia.
Pigeon Island National Landmark combines beaches, historic military ruins and short walks to viewpoints over Rodney Bay and the Caribbean. Reduit Beach, Rodney Bay and Gros Islet are also close enough to fit around the edges of a conference day.
And if your timing works, Gros Islet’s Friday night street party offers a rather different form of post-conference networking.
Then go south
If you have only seen northern Saint Lucia, you have not really seen the island.
The road south leads towards Soufrière and the landscape most people picture when they think of Saint Lucia: Gros Piton and Petit Piton rising dramatically from the Caribbean coast.
The Pitons form part of a UNESCO World Heritage landscape and dominate the southwest of the island.
Soufrière is also the base for Sulphur Springs, volcanic mud baths, waterfalls, rainforest, botanical gardens and some of Saint Lucia’s best-known beaches.
See the Pitons from the water
There are many ways to experience the Pitons, but one of the best requires almost no effort at all.
Get on a boat.
Saint Lucia’s west coast is spectacular from the sea. A sailing or boat trip gives you the scale of the volcanic coastline, bays and Pitons in a way that is difficult to appreciate from the road.
It also has the considerable advantage of generally involving the Caribbean Sea.
Get under the water
Saint Lucia is also a serious diving and snorkelling destination.
The west coast offers warm Caribbean water, reefs, walls and marine life, with well-known diving around Soufrière and Anse Chastanet.
If you dive, consider adding two or three days after the conference rather than trying to squeeze it between plenary sessions.
If you do not dive, snorkelling gives you a much lower-administration version of the same idea.
Walk somewhere
If you want to earn the view, Gros Piton can be climbed with a guide.
For something less ambitious, Saint Lucia has shorter nature trails and viewpoints that still deliver the rainforest-and-volcano experience without requiring you to turn the trip into an endurance event.
Bring proper shoes. This is not the occasion for attempting a tropical trail in conference footwear.
Eat and listen locally
Saint Lucia is more than scenery.
Make time for local food, markets, villages and music. English is the official language, while Saint Lucian Creole — Kwéyòl — remains an important part of everyday culture.
One of the pleasures of moving beyond the resort is getting a better sense of the island that is hosting us.
How much extra time?
If you can manage it, we think three or four days after the conference is ideal.
That is enough time to relocate to the Soufrière area, slow the pace down and experience the south without turning every day into a race between attractions.
A simple post-conference plan might be:
Day 1 — Travel south to Soufrière, stop along the west coast and settle in.
Day 2 — Pitons, Sulphur Springs, waterfall or rainforest.
Day 3 — Diving, snorkelling or a boat day.
Day 4 — Nothing particularly productive. Beach. Lunch. Caribbean Sea. Then start thinking about the trip home.
Why we keep doing this
There are easier ways to organise a medical conference.
We could hold DevelopingEM in the same convention centre every two years.
We could put everyone in a dark room, deliver excellent lectures, collect the CPD hours and send everybody home.
But that was never the idea.
DevelopingEM is about emergency medicine in context — different systems, different resources, different cultures and different solutions.
Saint Lucia is not the backdrop to DevelopingEM 2026.
It is part of the conference.
So extend the trip
If you have already registered, have another look at your flights before everything becomes difficult to change.
If you have not registered yet, there is still time to turn a conference into a genuinely memorable trip.
Come for the emergency medicine.
Stay for Saint Lucia.
DevelopingEM 2026 — Saint Lucia
Pre-conference Workshops: 14–15 November 2026
Main conference: 16–18 November 2026
Post-conference Workshops: 19 November 2026
#DevEM2026