Football, architecture, Banksy – and endocrinology

Liverpool:  3-0 winners over Manchester United recently, 5 times winners of the European Cup (as I frequently tell the Chelsea supporting 10 yo at home), what else is there to say? Well, it has the largest collection of Grade 1 listed buildings in the UK, the historic Albert Dock, gorgeous Georgian streets  (home to The Quarter restaurant), shops (lots of them allegedly),  uber cool bars and cafes- Leaf Tea Shop  (night time music too) and Bold Street Coffee shop definitely worth a visit. Liverpool is also famed for the Arts-there have been a couple of good bands from there over the years, the  haunting ‘Another Place’ on Crosby Beach, Tate Liverpool and a Banksy on the edge of China Town. And you can take advantage of all of this while also attending BES 2014- Society for Endocrinology you are spoiling us!

Oh, and there is the BES2014 itself. As usual there is a packed program. I will be focusing on the clinical sessions. Top of my agenda I think will be  Symposium 9: MEN1- from molecular pathology to therapies. The management of P-NETs in MEN1 is the area I find most challenging at work, and I hope to be clearer on who I should be considering referring for surgery after this session.

I like the look of the bone Symposia (4 and 10) I don’t know much about bone so I hope to learn something useful there, and will follow it up by checking the latest on vitamin D at MTE, mainly to be able to advise GPs and prevent my clinic from being overrun. It will be interesting to attend Symposium 5-Endocrine Consequences of trauma, especially the talk on TBI. This is a controversial area. Data locally suggests this is not as large a problem as may be suggested but still is an important cause of hypopituitarism. It will be interesting to hear who we should be testing for this.

I shall sneak into the Young Endocrinologists session given by Wiebke Arlt on ‘What makes a successful collaboration between a basic scientist and a clinician?’ to see where I can improve.
But it will be the Plenary and Prize Lectures that will be the highlight for me - listening to internationally renowned clinical researchers always inspires me and makes endocrinology and metabolism seem so fascinating -  Ron Evans, Theo Visser, Mitchell Lazar, Bruno Allolio and our very own Krishna Chatterjee. That’s a pretty impressive team sheet (which one is the Stevie G equivalent I ask?).

Finally for some entertaining education there is the endocrine debate ‘This house believes Genome Wide Association Studies will have no impact upon clinical endocrinology’. Il Presidente (the Brendan Rogers of the Society) is speaking for the proposal so I am double intrigued to hear what he has to say!

So I shall be there, getting inspired, catching up with colleagues,  socialising with friends, tweeting and blogging, and missing the dinner due to another commitment so Sir Steve better be able to sneak me in to see the hallowed turf! #sfebes14 #YNWA.

Helen Simpson

Consultant Endocrinologist, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge