SAWC Spotlight: What Influences Your Decision to Attend the SAWC?

  The brochures, the emails, the eblasts, and the ads inundating your various inboxes list numerous reasons for wound care providers to attend the Symposium on Advanced Wound Care, affectionately known as the S-A-W-C.   Earn up to 27.5 continuing education credits. Learn the most current evidence-based practice from key opinion leaders in the field. Shop the largest wound care exhibit hall in the world. Network with vested, informed peers. Visit some of the most picturesque cities in the United States.

  Why do you attend? What attracts you to our conference over other options? Recent changes in health care have affected education subsidies, forcing many if not most attendees to finance their own education and the travel associated with conference attendance. Many less expensive options (online courses, webinars) are available, yet year after year, you come to the SAWC. What is your motivation to come (or not)?

  Are you swayed by the convenience of being able to address your continuing education requirements in one fell swoop? Is the quality of the presentations a factor (we like to think ours are meatier than other comparable conferences)? Do presenter names play a role — are you interested in attending sessions featuring known entities or do you look for new names, thinking they will have something refreshing to offer? Do you utilize all the various types of presentations (general sessions, breakout sessions, free satellite breakfasts and lunches, poster sessions, and exhibit hall product demonstrations and talks)?

  Do you determine your attendance based on the location —ie, your home (or nearby) city or a place you can coordinate with vacation plans? Is ease of access (eg, flight schedules) important? Cost of lodging?

  Do you attend as a member of the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care so you can participate in their activities, including their annual meeting? Or as an OWM, WOUNDS, or Today’s Wound Clinic Board member?

  Is the SAWC an opportunity to meet up with friends and colleagues to socialize, commiserate, and celebrate your mutual career paths and interests? Is the attendance of others you know a factor?

  Once you have experienced all the SAWC has to offer, do you tend to automatically consider coming back, or are you one and done and looking for another conference option based on session content or location?

  Of the numerous benefits and reasons for keeping the Spring (and/or Fall) SAWC in your sights, which one(s) most influence your decision?