PUSHING BOUNDARIES FROM THE MIDAIR SUSPENSION OF A PANDEMIC

Early this year, in what seems like a lifetime ago, the NAPCRG Board of Directors decided to host its spring meeting virtually in response to what was then a new virus. Over the next few months, COVID-19 spread across the globe and infiltrated all parts of our lives. By May, a new, virtual reality culminated in a different kind of board meeting where the first order of business was commiseration. We shared stories about the virus’ impact on personal and professional lives and assessed uncertainty in the year ahead. Calling attention to this liminal space, as though trapped in a holding pattern before landing, we had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. For many, the time has been filled with the chaos of clinical care ranging from early morning hospital rounds to late night phone calls with patients and students and family. COVID-19 has triggered both a personal and business imperative for change.

And now, as COVID continues to disrupt and discourage, the NAPCRG Annual Meeting has transformed. Long cherished as “home” for primary care research, the meeting will be a welcome respite to a challenging year. Untethered from familiar hotel ballrooms, our new home will span boundaries of geography, time, and space. We are explorers in a digital divide that enables access and disconnection in equal measure. At the time of this writing, we do not know whether we will be celebrating relief from a vaccine, managing a new surge, or holding more liminal space. What we do know is that the meeting will celebrate primary care and the research that propels it.

The NAPCRG Annual Meeting is still your home. Join us November 20-24, 2020 for cutting-edge education and innovation. CME will be provided, and programming will include presentations and interactive discussions with a special focus on late-breaking COVID research. Now more than ever, researchers need a place to share knowledge, insights, and camaraderie. An online poster hall and plenary speakers will provide wide-ranging perspective adjusted like a lens for close depth or broader distance. Presenters will include Mark Smith, MD, MBA and Paula Braveman, MD, MPH and a COVID-19 Panel consisting of Rebecca Etz, PhD; Trisha Greenhalgh, OBE, FRCP, FRCGP, FMedSci; Michael Kidd, MD, MBBS; Ross Upshur, BA(Hons), MA, MD, MSc. Enjoy networking with familiar faces and new acquaintances. Music from a variety of new and old voices, interspersed throughout the conference, will cultivate other forms of “knowing” and sense-making.

COVID-19 has cast a spotlight on all aspects of primary care: health disparities and racial injustice, physical and psychological well-being, practice change and the compelling need for societal change. Against this backdrop, the 48^th NAPCRG Annual Meeting will provide a home for inspiration, joy, and education to reinvigorate work and nurture the relationships that are cherished by a tight-knit community of research lovers across the globe. Join us!

Visit www.napcrg.org to register.

• © 2020 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.