David Wells, IBMS Chief Executive, on the Biomedical Scientist Live and plans for next year’s Congress.
Registration is now open for the third annual the Biomedical Scientist Live event (visit bit.ly/3e8DipL to register). It will feature a line-up packed with knowledge-sharing sessions, seminars, presentations, discussions and demonstrations – and, again, it will be free for IBMS members.
We came up with the idea of an online conference during the pandemic – after realising that we were going to have to cancel Congress. Of course, we didn’t want to replace Congress (and knew that we could not match the scale and buzz of our world-leading four-day event online) but we did want to host some alternative learning for the membership.
The Biomedical Scientist Live emerged and went down incredibly well. Everybody had a newfound Teams and Zoom literacy at their behest and an online conference didn’t seem like such a strange thing to attend anymore. The sessions were well researched and delivered and the thousands of people who attended gained valuable knowledge, networks and CPD.
Since then, we also managed to host an exceptional Congress in March this year. It felt long overdue – getting the whole profession together and talking about where we’d been and where we were going. It was the first thing many of us had done outside of our rigorous lockdown routines for years.
Now I’m really looking forward to Congress 2023. Our specialist panels are going above and beyond to bring together an impressive roster in a much-reduced timescale. As an organisation growing on the national and international stage,
I am glad to report that we have been attracting bigger and better speakers. With just over a year between Congresses this time, it will be particularly interesting to see just how quickly the concerns of our profession shift and move, and what stays the same.
In the meanwhile, this November, I’m proud that the Biomedical Scientist Live will be offered as part of the IBMS membership package again. I think that we must keep doing more to give members high-quality and easily accessible CPD – to help balance busy lives with the need for professional development as part of HCPC registration.
The feedback from the members who attended both Congress and the Biomedical Scientist Live was widely positive. Our members rightly appreciate and enjoy opportunities to learn and develop. This is the core of what we do and the core of what we offer – and also the core of why people join us. The more ways we find of doing it the better.
David Wells Chief Executive