Attendees Tout Annual Meeting, Society Membership, and More (Part 1)
By Staff
ENDO 2024 is now in the history books. More than 7,500 endocrine professionals from all over the world gathered in Boston, June 1-4, for our annual meeting. Endocrine Signals caught up with some of the attendees to find out what they enjoy most about ENDO and being a Society member. Here’s some of what they had to say (comments have been edited for clarity):
I feel very welcome at ENDO, and not every conference can you feel that. There are many conferences where people might look at me and say they don’t believe I’m an assistant professor or a full professor. Here, they just say, ‘Oh, you're a professor, cool. What do you study?’ That's so important. As far as from a scientific angle, all of my graduate mentors, and my graduate mentor’s mentor are here. So, I get to see my grandfather, if you will, for my PhD line of research. It's really cool. You see everybody, right? And you get to know the big people. And the big people are just regular people. That's so different than sometimes at other societies, because they have these airs of, ‘I'm important,’ and you basically kind of bow down a little bit, But here at the Society, it’s not like that. You can meet your heroes. They interact with you, they even give you advice and they'll mentor you and you feel so warm inside and you feel welcomed and that is above everything. That's the most important thing to me.
I didn't fully realize this before I joined the Society, but it’s certainly not limited to the U.S. It's not limited to endocrinology in the clinical setting, which we usually experience in hospital settings. It’s pretty much all encompassing. My favorite personal part of the Society has been the effect we've had stateside regarding advocacy. When I started residency two years ago, it was very hard for a patient from a low socioeconomic area to get access to insulin. And based on the work of the Endocrinology Society, and their advocacy on Capitol Hill, we were able to cap the price of insulin. That's something I would give them complete credit for, and something I'm very happy to say that I've seen a reflection on the clinical side of things, where we have patients who were rationing insulin in the past are now able to afford it.
I have a passion for diversity, equity and inclusion. It's why I work in transgender health to try and improve health equity. The opportunity for me to work on CoDI (Committee on Diversity and Inclusion) came up about 12 months ago. It’s been fantastic to see how much the Endocrine Society works to try and improve diversity and inclusion. I love how CoDI has a bit of influence in sort of all aspects of the Endocrine Society, from the program planning to the Board of Directors representation to committee member representation. I also love the advocacy that the Endocrine Society undertakes in all sorts of forms, whether that be for research funding, or for access to medications, for transgender health, and reproductive health. I think that that's so important in the current climate that we live in globally.
The Endocrine Society gives you the foundation and the building blocks to go out and do the work, whether you're working in private practice or academic studies. At ENDO, you're meeting with like-minded people who are committed to improving health outcomes, health equity and equality. I've never come to this ENDO meeting and felt like, ‘oh my gosh, I don't know this.’ I feel like it's a very warm, welcoming environment where people want you to learn, where they want to teach you. When I first started coming, it was intimidating as a fellow trying to run around with 7,000 people. But as I continue to come back, I have noticed the intimidation factor was a lot less because I'm like, ‘wow, these people are a lot like me.’ So why should I feel intimidated?
The Endocrine Society is my professional family. I started with ExCEL (Excellence in Clinical Endocrinology Leadership program) and was one of the alumni of the 2023 class. As part of ExCEL, we are selected to be part of a committee and we get the chance for mentoring. I had the opportunity to be selected and serve on the CoDI committee. The Endocrine Society opened all of these doors, not only to find new mentors, sponsors, and everybody who has been helping me become a better endocrinologist, but also to open other doors that allow me to serve the field. I'm now part of other committees at the Endocrine Society. And in my case, being a Hispanic physician, I feel I have a voice in the Endocrine Society, and it gives me hope, because I see other leaders who look like me who are already in leadership positions.
My favorite part of ENDO is being able to learn in a very relaxed and collegial environment. Outside of ENDO, we're just all doing our day-to-day clinical research activities. But here you are learning, and at the same time it's with friends, your friends, your people that are like-minded. And so that is enjoyable. I also just love the diversity of people who come in from all across the world, from all across countries, and getting to meet people from different places. I think that's amazing. I’ve also had the great opportunity of being an intern and participating as a member of the ENDO Annual Meeting Steering Committee. That has helped me to see how the entire Endocrine Society conference comes into play, how it happens behind the scenes, and it's been a great experience.
The Endocrine Society has been helping me in my career since I was a resident and was submitting abstracts. At one point, I got selected to give an oral presentation, and obviously, that's going to help you not only when you're applying for fellowships and jobs, but it also helps you connect with mentors in your area. I also really enjoy the focus that the Endocrine Society has placed on connecting us all, as well as diversity and inclusion. For example, I was in the session where we talked about the guidelines for glucocorticoid and adrenal insufficiency in a joint guideline with the European Society of Endocrinology and the Endocrine Society. These are the types of things that I love about Endocrine Society, that collaboration.
I met my postdoc advisor at an Endocrine Society meeting. It's one of these things where I have just sort of grown up in Endocrine Society. It’s not a pretentious organization, you know, people typically don't go into endocrinology just for the money. It's a very inclusive society, much more so than other large societies that I’ve been a part of. But it's also big enough that it gives you a diverse range of topics and ample opportunities to be involved in various aspects of the organization and our field. And so you can get plenty of experience with leadership positions.
One of my favorite memories during my term as president – and I had several favorite memories – has been walking around the meeting and seeing how happy and excited and involved and interactive the Society members are. There's more than 7,500 people here and it feels like a small meeting. You keep running into people you know, and it just makes you feel great. Another thing that really makes me feel good is the staff and the executive team that put together this meeting. The same goes for the governance of the Endocrine Society. Spending a year getting to know these amazing people, and then seeing them at the meeting and just hanging out and realizing these people aren't just my colleagues, they're my friends. That's how I feel about everybody in the Society, and that's so that's the best thing about what's going on right now.
