It feels like it was just yesterday we were all in New Orleans eating beignets at Preventive Medicine 2023, yet here we are gearing up for Preventive Medicine 2024! The Conference Planning Committee has been hard at work for the past several months arranging plenary speakers, organizing logistics and coordinating events to ensure Preventive Medicine 2024 will be a smash hit! The conference will take place in Washington, D.C. April 18-21, 2024, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel, so be sure to mark your calendars.
There are some key points I want to highlight about this year’s conference. First, I want you to know that we have listened to your feedback and taken it to heart. We heard many calls for a return to the “bread and butter” of preventive medicine, which includes topics such as infectious disease outbreaks, injury prevention, risk communications and biostatistics. These are core tenets of preventive medicine and are primary reasons many joined the profession. We also clearly heard requests to address the future, such as emerging threats (e.g., health misinformation, pandemic preparedness) and cutting-edge technologies (e.g., artificial intelligence, machine learning). We plan to bridge the past and the future to the present and will deliver on the topics you want to learn about and believe are important.
Second, we want you to feel like you have tangibly benefitted from attending PM 2024. To achieve this, we have implemented a variety of changes. We believe skill development and maintenance is critical, so we are organizing several workshops that utilize hands-on learning and which align with our newly revised conference tracks. These workshops will address a variety of important and interesting topics to our specialty, like collaborating with healthcare journalists to improve risk communications and media interactions. We also revised our conference tracks, which are now:
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Innovations in Preventive Medicine
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Community and Population Health
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Clinical Preventive Medicine
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Global Health
You’ll note that global health will be playing a major role in PM 2024. This aligns with what we hear as an area of interest from you as preventive medicine physicians as well as what we consider to be a critical piece to the future of the specialty. Our hope is that you will learn a great deal about preventive medicine in global contexts and opportunities to get involved in this kind of work. Additionally, the call for oral presentation abstracts is now open. So, if you would like to present on a topic that aligns with any of the tracks, please submit your idea! We want to hear all about the research you’re doing, the public health initiatives you’re launching and the clinical techniques you’re pioneering!
Third, with the conference taking place in our nation’s capital, we think it is only natural for the theme to be “Leadership in Medicine and Public Health.” More importantly, we believe that the preventive medicine specialty is uniquely positioned for developing leaders in medicine and public health. No matter what type of context or environment in which you work as a preventive medicine physician, there is undoubtedly an opportunity to lead a group, whether that be a healthcare team, a community, a health system or an organization. Because we receive unique training that enables us to seamlessly move between the clinical and public health worlds, we are eminently qualified to pursue healthcare leadership positions. PM2024 intends to highlight the roles and opportunities our specialty has as leaders in health.
We are confident you will walk away from Preventive Medicine 2024 feeling connected, inspired and fulfilled. But most of all, we want you to feel like you’ve gained something of value – whether that be through a skill you acquired in a workshop, a new clinical or population health approach you can implement in your work, or a meaningful connection with a colleague. There will truly be something for preventive medicine physicians of all stripes at PM2024. We look forward to seeing you there!
Submit your research presentation and become part of PM 2024 here.
MAJ Hunter Jackson Smith, MD, MPH, MBE
Chair, Preventive Medicine 2024 Conference