This is my third annual recap of the Midwest Reproductive Symposium international (MRSi) , so I'm going to have a little fun with this one. I don't feel like writing another list and I think there's a more valuable point I can convey to you. As of right now, MRSi holds the title for my favorite meeting in the field of reproductive health and I want to use it nudge other meetings to follow suit. I should be a fair judge, I go to almost all of them.
It certainly doesn't hurt that it's on Lake Michigan in Chicago in the summer time, and Dr. Angeline Beltsos knows how to incorporate an interesting theme. Those are pluses, but not enough to make a meeting my favorite. It's big enough to have a diverse range of programming and small enough to be very collaborative and social. People get to know each other and build meaningful relationships. I truly understand how important that is for the field. Louise Brown, the first baby ever born from IVF was a guest at the conference. As Louise put it,
"My parents were willing to advance science and try something that had never been done before because they felt their doctors were truly there for them."
These reasons not withstanding, do you know what I really think MRSi holds over our other meetings in the field? It's the most forward-looking.
Other meetings sometimes do a great job of exploring the latest science and the future prospects for assisted reproductive technologies, but they often stop there. I believe that's a mistake. Compared to some of the technologies that are being developed both inside and outside of our field right now, PGS looks about as complicated as tying a shoe.
A Change Gonna Come. Oh wait. It already did.
Several presentations detailed the incredible growth of technology across multiple facets of society, not just ART. My own talk was titled The Biggest Change Ever in Human Communication: the Tech Revolution and Our Patients. The title isn't hyperbole. I made the case that we are living through a bigger shift than that of the printing press, perhaps even greater than the written word itself. If you would like the slides from my presentation, I will be happy to e-mail them to you. Here's the punchline: the supercomputer in every one's hand, that we call a smartphone, has changed dating, parenting, conversation, and commerce, for us and our patients. We have hardly begun to adapt our operations accordingly. And this is only the beginning.
Bob Huff, Chief Information Officer of RMA of Texas, shared with us technology that is changing the way generalists refer patients, and even the way patients are diagnosed. Scientists have just created functioning mouse embryos through 3D printing.
My co-speaker, Hannah Johnson, Operations Director of Vios Fertility, and I, had the pleasure to speak to the mental health professionals group as well as the practice administrators' Business Minds group. We desperately need more of this inter-disciplinary kind of discussion because entire industries are being radically and forcibly changed. You'll forgive me for not using the popular buzzword, "disrupted". I prefer to put it more bluntly. Large institutions and established companies are losing double digit market share or going out of business in periods of 12-36 months. How does that sound?
"We could be looking at widespread clinic closures within the next 5-10 years."--Hannah johnson
I don't want that for this field. I started my career in radio advertising. I watched wealthy and powerful stakeholders go bankrupt because they were comfortable or because they weren't willing to invest time, money, and energy to adapt. As Dr. Francisco Arredondo from RMA of Texas says, "we produce one new fertility specialist per 10 million people per year". A need of such titanic portions is one that is begging for more technological disruption.
how can we learn if every effort is required to produce a particular result?
Broad social and technological change isn't a frame of mind that we usually allow ourselves to explore at most of our regional meetings throughout the year, or even at ASRM. It's a bit more welcome at MRS to question the status quo, and test new platforms and processes, without the scrutiny of the exact result that any particular effort might produce at the given moment. Elizabeth Carr, the first baby born from IVF in the United States, is now a marketing data consultant who also spoke at the conference. "I wouldn't be standing before you today if my parents and their doctors weren't willing to try something that had never been done before."
Virtually every area of medicine and practice management is ready to be disrupted by technology. We can wait for pain, or we can put in the effort and patience required to adapt to these changes. MRSi is the first meeting in our field where we're starting to think and talk in these terms. I hope it serves as an example for the others.