Top 10 Reasons to Go to the Pallimed/GeriPal Party at the AAHPM & HPNA Annual Assembly

February 14, 2011
Eric Widera
American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine

Here are the top 10 reasons why you should come to the Annual Pallimed/GeriPal Party hosted during the AAHPM / HPNA Annual Assembly. Before I begin, let me just say that the party was a blast last year. This year, thanks to Christian Sinclair, we have reserved the Showcase Restaurant & Bar in the Marriott Pinnacle Hotel (1122 West Hastings Street) on Thursday, February 17 from 8:00pm to 11:00pm. The party is open to all, so drop on by.

Still not convinced. Here are my top 10 reasons:

Fig. 1

You recently read the latest JAMA article about unprofessional behavior by health care professionals on twitter and thought to yourself – “those are my kind of people”.
You sat through workshops, boot camps, posters, plenaries, case conferences, and SIGs, and not once did someone offer to buy you a beer.
You need a break from all that palliative caring and hospicing.
You feel a need to dispel the myth that Christian Sinclair is a virtual being who was created by Drew Rosielle after he scanned images from palliative care journals and prognosis data into his computer during a weird electrical storm, and that following a freak power surge, Christian emerged (see Figure 1 for an artist’s rendition of Christian).
You think that Labatt, Molson and Sleeman are the authors of the recent palliative care prolongs life NEJM article.
You heard Diane Meier’s talk about ‘optics’ last year and wondered if she was referring to beer goggles and their effect on palliative care marketing.
You are planning to ski the entire time you are in Vancouver and need to figure out some way to get CME credit (please note, this event is not officially sanctioned by AAHPM or HPNA).
You spent your entire per diem on a bag of in-flight peanuts and desperately need free food.
You went to the social media session (1:30 to 2:30 on Thursday) and thought these people would be a lot more persuasive after a couple beers.
You spent the last 3 months working on your poster for the abstract session, only to find out that it was somehow replaced with a movie poster of ‘Strange Brew’: