Almost Time to Sign Up for Our Spring Meeting

We are planning a hybrid group meeting – essentially an in-person event augmented with virtual attendance options for all sessions.

The health and safety of our members and our patients is foremost, so those who attend the Seattle group meeting in person in April must either

• be fully vaccinated OR
• have tested negative for COVID-19 in the previous 72 hours.

If you attend the Seattle group meeting in person, when you get to the registration table to pick up your name badge, you’ll need to produce proof that you meet at least one of these requirements. Those who lack such proof won’t get a badge and won’t be able to attend in person (though virtual options remain). I strongly urge you to read the requirement details on our health and safety page.

These requirements are actually imposed by the public health department of King County, Washington, home to Seattle, on visitors attending events in the county. So, we couldn’t alter them even if we wanted to (which we don’t).

Is there a chance our plans for an in-person meeting will change? Of course. Plans should evolve as circumstances evolve. But in our survey following last fall’s group meeting, two-thirds of respondents said they would consider attending in person in the spring. So, after extended discussions about the risks and rewards of an in-person event, and with successful hybrid meetings by other organizations to use as models (see the ASCO GI Symposium for example), we made the decision to go hybrid.

Think of a “hybrid” meeting as an in-person meeting with additional options – all the usual benefits and attractions of face-to-face sessions with the added benefits of having all sessions online and available to an even larger group of members who cannot attend in person.

What’s on the group meeting schedule? Here’s a sampling:

• The agendas for our translational medicine plenary (Plenary I) and our general plenary (Plenary II) are still being settled, and when those are final, details will be linked from the group meeting page. I can promise both will be events you won’t want to miss!
   
• The spring Livingston Lecture will be given by Dr. Dan Hayes to a meeting of our breast committee. Dr. Robert B. Livingston served distinguished terms as chair of first our lung committee and then our breast committee, and this lecture in his honor alternates, meeting to meeting, between those committees.
   
• We’ll once again hold our Clinical Trials Training Course. For nurses and CRAs who would like to attend this in person, The Hope Foundation offers a limited number of group meeting travel support awards. Hope must receive your application for funding by February 7.
   
• The oncology research professionals committee is hosting a special symposium titled “Oncology Advanced Practice Providers Can Enhance Clinical Research.” APPs can and do enhance clinical oncology research; this symposium will explore how.
   
• A symposium hosted by the recruitment and retention committee is titled “Take Action Symposium: American Indians: Ensuring Equity in Clinical Research.” This is the third installment in the committee’s “TAKE ACTION” series, each of which addresses cultural values of a different population of patients from the perspective of building trust to enhance equity and access in clinical research.
   
• The GU committee is sponsoring not one but two special symposia. The first is “Radiation Oncology: Targeting Oligometastatic Disease in GU Cancers,” which will address the use of radiosurgery for metastatic genitourinary cancers. The second is “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in GU Oncology in SWOG” and will focus on work to improve the diversity of the committee’s membership and leadership and its patient accrual to clinical trials.
   
• Finally, Friday evening features a general reception for all attendees. I don’t usually list receptions when previewing highlights, but this will be our first face-to-face reception since … well, let’s just say it’s been a while, and I’m certainly looking forward to a chance to connect with all of you!

SWOG’s group meetings – especially the in-person kind – would be impossible without the generous support of The Hope Foundation. In addition to the CRA/Nurse Travel Support Program I mentioned above, Hope provides direct funding to committees to support group meeting needs that are not covered by our NCTN or NCORP grants. It also offers travel support to members of SWOG’s board of governors (who will meet on Saturday, April 9, in Seattle). I want to remind board members that those who take advantage of this Hope travel support may leave funds on the table at their institution that other worthy colleagues can then use to travel to the group meeting.

SWOG has held twice-a-year group meetings since 1978. This should be our 89th! Let’s make it our best yet. See you in Seattle!