SWOG’s Spring Meeting, April 30 – May 2: You’re Invited

SWOG’s spring group meeting is now less than two weeks away, starting on Thursday, April 30th. We’re particularly excited about our first meeting as SWOG group chairs, and to say we’re eager to engage with SWOG members is something of an understatement.

A prime venue for that engagement will be the meeting’s plenary session, “A Dialogue with Members” (2 - 4 pm PT, Friday, May 1). We’ll honor outgoing SWOG leaders, introduce some new members of the leadership team, and discuss our vision for growing SWOG’s success and impact in the coming years.

In the plenary’s second half, we’ll shift to an interactive town hall-style forum, opening the floor to a dialogue with you, SWOG’s members. Bring us your questions, your concerns, and your ideas about the group’s future. Tell us what SWOG should be doing that it’s not, and what it should do more of. We hope you’ll join the conversation!

If you won’t be in San Francisco, join virtually via Zoom and contribute through the Chat function. You can also send us your plenary questions and comments right now, in an email to meetings@swog.org. 

Throughout the meeting, we’ll also be celebrating Dr. Charles Blanke’s legacy as group chair. To help commemorate that legacy, we invite you to contribute to a book of member messages to Dr. Blanke.

You’ll find the book near the registration and Hope Foundation tables in San Francisco, where you can take a moment to compose a note to Dr. Blanke, relate a favorite memory, or simply say “thank you!” 

Or you can sign the book at the group reception Friday evening, where we’ll even provide a digital flip book of photos from the past 13+ years to help fire up your memories.

If you won’t be in San Francisco but still want to send a message to Dr. Blanke, email it to meetings@swog.org and we’ll see it gets added. We’ll present the final book to him as sort of a member-written chronicle of his time and impact as SWOG chair.

Among many great sessions on the agenda for San Francisco, here are a few we’d like to highlight, starting with the meeting’s very first talk:

• Thursday morning, 7:30 – 8:30 am PT, the Vice Chair’s Council on Representation sponsors a talk by Shannon Silkensen, PhD, an NCI expert on real-world data, on how to expand the generalizability and impact of our trials by integrating real-world evidence (it’s an early talk, but you can grab a coffee and pastry near the registration table beforehand).
• The first gathering of SWOG’s newest committee – the advanced practice provider (APP) and nurse scientist committee – is set for Friday, 11:30 am – 1:30 pm PT. If you want to learn more about partnering with this new committee, you are invited to attend.
• This spring’s Take Action Symposium (Thursday, 2:30 – 4:30 pm PT) also highlights the contributions of APPs – specifically, the roles they can play in expanding access to cancer trials.
• At the SWOG Clinical Trials Partnerships Update Forum (Thursday, 5:30 – 6:30 pm PT), the CTP team will have exciting news about its clinical trials – both the two already active (LEUK01 and HN01/CAPT-HN) and the protocols now approaching launch. CTP offers some great opportunities for SWOG member sites.

Our final spring meeting takeaway: to contribute to building the vision for the next era of SWOG success, don’t miss the plenary session, which will feature an open dialogue between SWOG members and leaders. It’s 2 – 4 pm PT, Friday, May 1. You are invited. 

We look forward to working with you, in-person or virtually, in San Francisco!