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PFOLA Vancouver

Discussion in 'Biomechanics, Sports and Foot orthoses' started by Kevin Kirby, Oct 27, 2008.


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    The 11th Annual PFOLA Conference in Vancouver, which 250 participants attended this last few days, seemed to be one of the better ones that I have ever attended. Of note, I enjoyed seeing Drs. Peter Cavanagh, Irene Davis, Joe Hamill, Chris Nester and Karl Landorf all give their key-note lectures and even enjoyed seeing Craig Payne do one of his "pinch-hit" diabetes lectures with only about an hour of warning when one of the lecturers failed to bring a passport with him to the airport and didn't make his flight. Awesome job, Craig.

    Karl Landorf gave a great lecture from his book chapter on orthosis research evidence and made a very convincing argument for the clinical usefulness of treating lower extremity stress fractures and "shin splints" with foot orthoses. Good job, Karl.

    I enjoyed seeing and getting to speak with many of my international colleagues there. It seemed like most everyone thought that the program was a good balance of both the leading research in foot and lower extremity biomechanics and clinical application in the workshops. Next year's PFOLA meeting will be in Atlanta in October 2009. If you have never attended the meeting, it is one of the better seminars for those that have an interest in foot and lower extremity biomechanics.
     
  2. Jeremy Long

    Jeremy Long Active Member

    It will be nice when this conference is a couple thousand or so miles closer to me. It's so difficult to get away for the number of days a conference like this takes. Looking forward to attending when I can.
     
  3. Craig Payne

    Craig Payne Moderator

    Articles:
    8
    The next one is in Atlanta
    Memo to self: Next time at conference, avoid Doug Richie in case he is looking for a speaker.
     
  4. Jeremy Long

    Jeremy Long Active Member

    That's excellent! I'll definitely make the time to attend. I'll be at PFA next week, but that conference is significantly lighter in clinical information that directly affects my patient evaluation and care.
     
  5. Ann PT

    Ann PT Active Member

    I find it interesting that according to the Registrant List as of October 22, there are only 56 people from the USA (vs. 45 from Vancouver/Victoria alone) and only 5 people from the East Coast. Is this due to distance or something else? (There were 25 registered from outside the USA and Canada.) Just wondering...I was surprised to see so few people from the East at such a great Conference...

    Ann
     
  6. David Wedemeyer

    David Wedemeyer Well-Known Member

    I attended last years PFOLA in San Diego. Possibly because it was in my own backyard in sunny Southern California. I would like to make the next one as I found it an excellent experience. Definitely more heady clinically then the PFA Symposium Jeremy.

    There are a number of people on this board that I would like to meet personally and put a face to a name, so I am planning in attending the next one.

    Ann it could be the economy affecting the turnout. I was planning on going the the PFA but have had some major expenditures recently and had to decline. For others its probably very similar I would think, economics.
     
  7. Jeremy Long

    Jeremy Long Active Member

    I can say that my neglect of attending PFOLA has been due to time. With my myriad patient/lab/admin duties it's very difficult to get away for regional shoes in the Southeast, much less dedicating additional time to travel to the opposite coast. It's a great relief to have next year's in Atlanta.

    I can't agree more with what David says about the PFA Symposium. It's very much focused on rudimentary lower extremity care (and how to profitably run your mall arch support dispensary). The odd thing is that the AOPA Conference used to be reasonably laden with seminars of interest to me (and others in similar circumstances); however, clinically interesting topics were noticeably missing from this year's event. In another recognizable change, this year's PFA has a larger selection of clinical presentations. I wonder if this is some sort of rebellion among CO's and CPO's in response to various state licenses permitting C Peds to evaluate, cast, and dispense AFO's.
     
  8. Mac

    Mac Member

    Ann:

    From our analysis, we believe that the economic issues are the #1 reason for the decline in US registration this past meeting. In general, conference registration has been seriously low for a number of major meetings in Canada nad the US. The week before PFOLA, I spoke at a conference in Banff (Region VII), of the 85 initial registrants, 25 cancelled (all US)! Yike...

    Cheers, Christopher MacLean
    Scientific Co-chair, PFOLA* 2008
     
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