Week 4

This week I was busy with clinical service cover on Monday, Tuesday on Friday.

British Association for Perinatal Medicine Conference

However, on Thursday I got to attend the annual BAPM conference which was held in Leeds this year (very convenient!). It was an interesting experience as it was my first experience of a conference which wasn't pharmacy related. Thankfully there was a lot of fellow colleagues from Leeds there, and so a few familiar faces to keep my company.

However, it reminded me of a really good article in the Pharmaceutical Journal (link: here). It's probably useful for any profession, but the points are really good if you are like me and being outspoken does not come naturally. I have certainly found the point about getting there early before large groups form to be really helpful. When I was more junior, I went to my first 3 pharmacy conferences by myself and it does take a bit of getting used to.

Anyway, back to the conference. It was amazing that I got to see my clinical supervisor Dr Kathryn Johnson present the preliminary results of a multicentre UK RCT called Elfin to the conference. The trial looked at whether a lactoferrin supplement would reduce the morbidity and mortality compared to placebo. Unfortunately there was no positive outcome and lactoferrin was not superior to placebo. Disappointing, but Dr Johnson did a great job presenting the results in an easy to understand way. This also showed how important it is to design the protocol well as if you get an unexpected result, at least you can show you thought of all eventualities and that no further work is needed.

I also got to see the posters on display. There was only two medication related projects; one on vancomycin and one on parenteral nutrition. I definitely think I can think of something to get submitted for next year. Hopefully on my preliminary work for my CDRF application.

Dr Johnson presenting at BAPM Conference 2018