Intro

As a novice (first year PhD) researcher in multimorbidity my major goals have been to broaden my knowledge of the topic and present some of my early project progress, however it’s not always easy to find conferences that fit. The North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) annual research meeting from 30th October to 3rd November in San Francisco, USA not only encouraged submissions from early career researchers by allowing ‘Work in Progress’ poster submissions but also has been regularly attended by many of my multimorbidity peers in the past and came highly recommended. The week filled me with such inspiration, connections and motivation (not to mention the sourdough!) I felt compelled to share the experience in this blog post.

 

Conference Content

The pre-conference workshop had multiple optional sessions that you could sign up to attend. I selected the AI/ML Bootcamp (add in who it was sponsored by). AI/ML is a hugely topical research area at present, particularly in multimorbidity research. Although it is not hugely part of my PhD it is something I really want to tap into and learn about over the coming years hence leapt at the opportunity to participate. The event was stimulating and left me equipped with a better understanding of the nuances involved in AI/ML, some of its useful applications and the challenges it faces in its implementation.

The conference itself then kicked off the next day with a mixture of thought-provoking plenary speakers (on climate change, lessons from abortion care in the US and AI), workshops by experts in their fields and collections of oral presentations from the submitted abstracts of completed research. Of particular interest to me was the two back-to-back oral presentation sessions focussed on multimorbidity. These sessions showcased the high variety of research being undertaken across the globe on many different aspects of multimorbidity: quality of life in different clusters; measuring multimorbidity; care fragmentation; management of psychosocial factors and qualitative explorations of self-perceptions. There was a wide variety of research methodologies presented and the short snappy presentations generated great discussions from the audience.

Poster sessions were scattered across the week and welcomed submissions in the category of ‘Work in Progress’ which is incredibly helpful for early career researchers to try out presenting and get feedback on the early parts of their work. During my poster session I had so many wonderful, engaging conversations and took home many helpful tips to shape my future work.  

 

Multimorbidity Special Interest Group

On Wednesday 1st November, 7 multimorbidity researchers came together at the Multimorbidity Special Interest Group. We were truly a global group, highlighting the global reach of both the International Research Community on Multimorbidity and NAPCRG itself, with representatives from the UK, USA, Japan and Belgium. This was a brilliant opportunity to catch up over breakfast to share our own research and learn what is happening globally. We also discussed ideas for how to grow the International Research Community on Multimorbidity with suggestions of regular seminars and exploring having a workshop at NAPCRG next year – if you have anything you would like to share in either of these forum please get in touch (multimorbidityblog@glasgow.ac.uk)! There were some great collaborations formed from this meeting which we are certain will both continue and grow.

 

Connections

Travelling alone to NAPCRG was incredibly daunting. However, prior to attending I reached out to Professor Frances Mair after seeing on Twitter/X that some of the University of Glasgow (General Practice & Primary Care group) had attended last year. The group made me feel incredibly welcome and it was a pleasure to go back to my Glaswegian roots for the week.

Throughout the week, be that an informal conversation at the table, at the poster session, over a drink at the International Reception or just an opportune meet in the corridor, connections were made with a wide range of people. I have to give huge praise to our multimorbidity community who were present and more than happy to share woes, stories and solutions to the various challenges our community faces – from definitions, implementation, heterogeneity and more!

In summary, NAPCRG’s annual meeting was an inspiring, welcome and influential space for a very early multimorbidity researcher to not only learn loads but also get enthused and excited about what our international community of researchers can achieve!

First published: 27 November 2023

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