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It’s Irresponsible to Hold a Medical Conference During the Coronavirus Epidemic

Aggregating that many providers in one place is a bad idea.

F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCE
3 min readMar 10, 2020

For many of us, the yearly medical conference is a welcome break from the day-to-day. A chance to meet up with colleagues we rarely see, learn what new research is going on in our field, do some networking, and maybe take in the sights of a new city.

But this year, amid the coronavirus epidemic, the medical conference may pose a public health risk.

Though initially slow to act, more and more conferences are being cancelled as infections increase — there’s an up to date list here on Medscape. Is this a good idea?

There’s a pretty straightforward case here. Medical professionals are at higher risk of exposure to coronavirus since we come into contact with lots and lots of patients. Gathering a large group of medical professionals in a single place increases the risk of exposure further. Factor in airplane flights to and from the conferences, and the chance that infection is spread is significant. And remember, although many of us are lucky enough to be relatively healthy and thus at low risk of significant complications, many of our patients are not.

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F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCE
F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCE

Written by F. Perry Wilson, MD MSCE

Medicine, science, statistics. Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Yale. Host of "Impact Factor" on Medscape.com.

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