The Winter Scientific Meeting (WSM) of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland (AAGBI) is held in London in January every year. It is one of the most prestigious anaesthetic meetings in the United Kingdom, and further afield. I have been assisting the Association with Twitter at their conferences for some time and had been asked to present a talk on how to use Twitter at conferences at this year’s WSM. This is quite an honour for an anaesthetist from a very small, very rural District General Hospital in the very far north of Scotland called Dr Gray’s. It is also quite a daunting task for those of us who have an avid dislike of microphones, never mind speaking to large audiences. So over a period of months my talk had been composed and shaped into “Learn with Twitter @ AAGBI conferences”. It was now ready to go – much to my family’s delight, after having been ignored for the last wee while (apart from small emergences from my study to practice the talk on them). Before I leave, the latest e-newsletter from the AAGBI arrives in my email inbox declaring that this will be the largest ever AAGBI meeting with over 800 delegates – imagine what this does for my already shot nerves!

Now Elgin is quite far from the delights of London Town and one cannot just hop onto a tube. I drove to Inverness airport, parked the car in the “long stay” car park and walked to the airport terminal – no buses here! Checked in for my flight and settled down in the departure lounge. Being a tech junkie, I just love the EasyJet iPhone app which connects to Passbook in the iPhone. One’s boarding pass magically appears on the front screen of the iPhone when one arrives at the airport, so that you can flash it at anyone and everyone who takes any sort of interest – fantastic! This is what tech is all about! I board the plane, flashing my iPhone at the EasyJet crew at the door – cool! I take my seat, very briefly consider taking over the tannoy being used for the safety brief to practice my talk to the plane load of passengers, very quickly decide on an alternative plan: music and a magazine. Ahh much more sensible!

In the luggage hall at the other end, we wait…. And wait….. And wait. Then the steel door rolls up, the conveyor belt starts up, the lights flash…..and we wait! Eventually some cases appear, then some more. Folks collect their bags and leave. Eventually the steel door rolls closed and the conveyor belt grinds to a halt. A small crowd of us look at each other, shrug, then head over to the staff desk. Not to worry, they tell us, they will bring the rest of the bags through this door. After another wait, the door opens and through come a number of push chairs. Relieved parents claim theirs and head off with their kids to pacify them. The doors close. A small group of us remain. We ask again and are assured that there are more cases to come but apparently we are waiting for an engineer to come and operate the steel door and conveyor belt. Said engineer must have eventually arrived because the steel door rolled up again, the conveyor belt started and the lights flashed……and we waited. I’m getting a serious dose of déjà vu here! Eventually a couple of bags trundle out. Last to appear is mine – typical! Good thing I am not in a rush to get anywhere! I wander off to catch the Gatwick Express into town, then a short tube journey to Westminster tube station.

I emerge to the sights of loads of famous London landmarks, take a left over Westminster bridge, past the London Eye to my hotel The Park Plaza Westminster Bridge.                                                                        

It is a great hotel. I check in. I am on the 9th floor – excited: I am sure to get a great view. Up I go to the room – very smart, subdued atmospheric lighting, etc. I whip open the curtains to admire the view – of a wall 3 ft in front of me – hmm! Oh well can’t have everything.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Elgin is not well known for it’s restaurants and does not even have a Nandos restaurant / takeaway. Now being from Southern Africa, where Nandos was conceived, this is a major disaster. One tends to get withdrawal symptoms. So the first thing one does on arrival anywhere civilised is to fire up the Nandos app on the iPhone and search for the nearest Nandos. Fantastic, there is one about 700 meters from my hotel. Off I go down the road leaving a trail of saliva behind me like Hansel and Gretal’s breadcrumbs through the forest. I have my favourite: a medium peri peri chicken (with extra sauce) and some peri peri chicken livers – to die for! The bottomless fizzy drink will keep the flames at bay, but I need something more substantial, ahh a Pinot Grigio, now that sounds good, I’ll have a large one please! My addiction (for Nandos – not wine!) satisfied, I head back to the hotel, where I should really practice my talk again, but opt instead for the lounge bar. I pay more for a glass of wine than I would normally for a bottle, which comes with a free bowl of snacks! I munch the snacks, decide they were quite nice and that the only way to get some more was to have another glass of unbelievably expensive wine. Done! A band starts playing some very mediocre music and I decide to retire before I spend the entire year’s salary on another glass or two of wine, and end up with a hangover the next day.

After a fairly sleepless night, I rise early the next morning and head down for a fantastic breakfast. Then off I go to the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre to register for the conference. On registering at the Faculty desk, I get taken through to the Speakers Room to check through my slides. “Are these yours” they ask, showing me some very foreign sounding surname. I reply in the negative and start to get a bit sweaty! They find my presentation on another computer and send it through to where it should be. I go through it – all fine. I ask the fellow if I will be able to adjust the frame showing the speakers notes – because some of them are quite large. They look shocked. There are no speakers notes I am informed, you can only see what is projecting on the screen. Disaster. I head to the lecture theatre to have a look around and see what we can do. The AV technician there is very helpful, he cannot give me speakers notes on a screen, but he is able to project my iPad onto the screen. Now I know that Keynote on the iPad works quite well and that I can see my speakers notes. The problem is that since upgrading to iOS7 my iPad has been crashing spectacularly and frequently – I could just imagine this happening half way through the talk! Biting the bullet, because I had no other option, I decide to go with the iPad. Fortunately My talk has been scheduled in the smaller of the two rooms and, I convince myself, not many anaesthetists are going to want to come to listen to a talk on Twitter anyway, so I’ll be fine. I go back downstairs to the main auditorium where the President of the Association is about to open the meeting. He stands up and announces with great glee that this is to be the biggest ever AAGBI meeting with not 800 delegates, oh no ladies and gentlemen, well over 900! I groan inwardly. After another sentence or two he, completely unexpectedly, announces that I will be speaking on Twitter shortly in the other auditorium and urges everyone to attend to learn this vital new skill. I really do start to sweat now! I slink back off to my lecture theatre where a handful of people await. This is good. The session chair comes over to me to say that the opening session is overrunning and we will have to delay the start. Ok, no problem. The end of the opening session becomes apparent as a great gush of people enter the room. Soon all of the seats are full and there are people standing at the back and round the sides of the room. They obviously paid attention to the president’s opening address! The session chair introduces me as the Association’s tech junkie, and off I go. The talk goes well. I have even scheduled some tweets to occur during my talk so that it looks like I am live tweeting whilst talking – not something I could possibly physically do! There are lots of really good questions afterwards, fortunately I can answer all of them, and that’s me done. A big weight off my chest. Now I can settle down and relax and enjoy the rest of the conference. I get going on the Twitter stream and very soon realise that is it is buzzing after my talk. Fantastic! Just what we wanted. There are number of my good friends at the conference and I catch up with them at lunch. After lunch I attend the keynote lecture which is to be given by an ex-Rhodesian and fellow graduate from The Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Harare who is now the Professor in Auckland, New Zealand. I attended many good talks that day, but the one that stood out for me was a talk on Generation Y, how the direct Generations vary, and how we will need to change the workplace to accommodate them – fascinating! All too soon the lectures are over, and it is time for the complimentary drinks reception. There is much chatting over a glass or two of wine, then folks fade away. I had hoped to spend the evening with my very good friend from Glasgow, but unfortunately he had been pre-booked to attend a friends birthday at the RAC. Never mind the iPhone will save me. I use a restaurant finder app with which I have had much success before, even though I notice that it seems to have changed a bit since I last used it. I find a pub not far away from my hotel which has very good reviews – sounds great, so I book. Walking down the street following the GPS, the buildings seem to get grubbier and grubbier. I find the pub and enter. The décor is non existent. There are a few punters sitting around a few grubby looking tables. I go up to the bar and declare that I have a table booked. The lady behind there looks confused – huh! Oh just take any table she says. I find a menu which looks singularly uninspiring, and exit as quickly as possible. Note to self: delete that app from the iPhone! I head back to the hotel. It is now too late to try to find anywhere else, so I decide to have dinner at the Joel Brasserie in the hotel. This looks and sounds expensive, and if last nights drinks were anything to go by, it will be! Oh what the hell, you only live once, the bank manager can sort it out when I get home! I order the baked Camembert for a starter and the 12 hour slow cooked piglet shoulder for mains. I’m fed up after the trip down the road so settle for a 500ml carafe of Bordeaux. It arrives and is delicious – so it should be as it has just doubled my bill! A basket of bread arrives, warm and home baked. These are all delicious, but the lemon bread is to die for! I wolf the lot! The Camembert arrives. It is a whole Camembert, perfectly baked – firm on the outside, but melts with the first touch into a delicious gooey mess. The toast soldiers are a perfect accompaniment. Next up the slow cooked piglet shoulder with pear and jus. Absolutely magic combination of flavours – delicious. I am stuffed to hilt, but still have a glass or so of wine left in my carafe and need something to go with it. I order the chocolate fondant with ice cream. It arrives perfectly cooked, perfect on the outside and runny in the middle. Brilliant meal, now I’m glad the pub turned out to be a disaster. Off to bed.

We have medical students attached to our anaesthetic department through the year. One of these, Karen, undertook a really great audit with me whilst in our department last year. She has now moved on and is currently doing her FY1 year in Newcastle. The content of the audit was really good, so I suggest that she prepared it for a poster presentation at one of the major anaesthetic conferences. Karen chose to submit the abstract to the AAGBI Winter Scientific Meeting. The audit looked at patient feedback on two parts of their hospital stay. Try as we might, we just could not précis the audit sufficiently to fit it into the required word count for submission to the WSM as a poster. So I came up with a bright idea – split it into two posters, one on each topic, and submit both. My sneaky logic was that this would increase our chances of one of them being accepted! Well the date for notification passed, we heard nothing, Karen got quite despondent. I tried to remain optimistic and keep her spirits up, but still we heard nothing. Eventually she contacted me, overjoyed. The audit had been accepted. “Which one?” I asked. “Both” she replied. Wow! Fantastic – well done you! I was to meet Karen at the meeting on the Thursday morning at the Poster section.

So up early on the Thursday, down for a full heart attack breakfast, and off to the QE II centre for day 2 of the congress. I met up with Karen, who was looking terrible. Poor lass had only been able to get the one day off to attend the congress. She had had an awful night at work on the Tuesday, then travelled down to London on the Wednesday evening. The folks in the room next to her’s had partied all night and kept her awake, so she was now 2 full nights without sleep. She bravely stood by her poster during the two poster sessions discussing it with all who were interested. This was no mean feat for a medical student (now FY1) in amongst all of the anaesthetic registrars presenting their posters. But she has now not only attended her first major conference, but has presented two posters there. In addition, the anaesthetic journal, Anaesthesia, publishes all posters from the WSM in a supplementary edition of its journal, so she now has 2 publications to add to her CV. Well done, you!

AAGBI how to Tweet poster

Talking about posters, it was really great to see all the posters around the conference site by the AAGBI showing delegates how to use Twitter.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Another great day at the congress with loads of interesting talks. The highlights for me were an interesting paediatric session in the morning; the talk on safety by my friend from New Zealand, Alan Merry; an absolutely fascinating talk on Personality Types by Dr Gordon French; and the keynote lecture on “The scientific study of Richard III” by Dr Piers Mitchell a biological anthropologist from Cambridge. By  lunch time the Twitter stream under the official conference hashtag: #WSMLondon14 had reached 1500 tweets posted in a day and a half. Had the folks taken up the challenge I issued during my talk to break all previous WSM records with the use of Twitter at this meeting? Time would tell!

Lancaster ballroom at the Savoy

That evening was the official conference dinner, which was to be held at the magnificent Savoy Hotel. So I quickly headed back to hotel after the last conference session to get dressed up in my finery – coming from the north of Scotland, there was no question: a kilt it had to be! Off  to the dinner which was held in the magnificent ballroom at the Savoy. This was a fantastic evening with some great food and even better company. Alan Merry and I staggered (well I did anyway) back to the hotel, with the aid of a taxi, at about 1 AM.

Day 3 of the conference was met with a sore fuzzy head. I wonder why? Only one thing for it – a big heart attack breakfast! Done, and feeling slightly better, I wander off to the conference centre to start the day’s proceedings. Somebody on the organising committee had obviously anticipated the late night and today’s sessions started a bit later than usual at 0930 – good thinking! Another great day of talks at the meeting, but without doubt topped (for me anyway) by a fantastic talk by Kevin Fong ( @Kevin_Fong ) “Playing it safe – Life, death and mistakes in the 21st century”. This talk and his ideas were so aligned with what our thoughts in Health Web Science that it got me very excited as to possible future collaborations.

Twitter activity at WSM 2014

Tweeting at WSM 2014

Twitter use continued unabated on the third day of the conference. It was flying. I was really chuffed. It was quite nice to be able to ease off and watch everyone else take up the reigns and #KeepOnTweeting – magic! By the end of the day not only had we completely smashed the old WSM record of 341 tweets, but we had eclipsed the highest ever number of tweets posted at any AAGBI meeting (previous best was #ACDublin13 at 1565 tweets posted). Our new record total was a staggering 1969 tweets posted in the 3 days of the conference by 213 tweeters. Fantastic. Well done to everyone who joined in with the Twitter stream at #WSMLondon14!

London Bridge at night

After the conference, I took the opportunity of being in London to visit my daughter and her good man who live in Kent. It was great to catch up with them and to be able to spend some time together. In Elgin our so-called broadband is not much better than a dial-up service.

The Tower of London

My usual speed is 0.5 Mbps. I get really amazed if it get up to 1.5 Mbps, and completely floored if it reaches 2.0 Mbps. At my daughter’s they opted for a capped speed of 30 Mbps, and it ran at that speed – lightening! I was pea green with envy! To make matters worse, they had just upgraded their iPhones to a new 4G contract and the 4G was running at 52 Mbps – 100 times faster than I get in Elgin. Grrrrrrr! Oh well, I console myself, there are other advantages to living in Elgin!

London night sky

We went out for dinner on the Saturday evening to the London Bridge branch of Gaucho’s for an Argentinian meal. Not cheap, but fabulous steaks. The evening was made even more spectacular by the sights on the Thames which were all lit up.