Medical congresses have a well-defined role in the process of continuous medical education of doctors. The program generally contains presentations both from groups that have recent research findings, but also presentations from opinion leaders, who analyze in detail the evidence existing in a particular niche field, these being the people with the most experience in that field.

The Congress of Bronchology and Interventional Pulmonology held in Athens on October 15-17, 2021 benefited from an excellent organization and the participation of almost 100 speakers, all renowned personalities in the field of bronchology.

The problem with such an interesting program condensed in a very short time is that not even in-person participants from the congress could attend all the presentations they would like to attend.

One of the positive consequences of the pandemic has been the acceptance that presentations can be made and listened to remotely. For all of us an online participation is not the same as a face-to-face participation, but it also has its advantages.  In the desire to align with these advantages, the organizers of the Congress in Athens, under the guidance of the president of the congress, Dr Grigoris Stratakos, managed to index all the presentations registered at the congress, which are now available online to EABIP members.

Okay, now that the congress has passed, what more can we do with these records? Well, I invite you to watch the congress program as you do … with a program on Netflix. When you have time, relaxed on the couch, and possibly with a glass of wine in hand, select something interesting to watch. And you’ll see that the effort is worth it. If you did not manage to attend the presentations in person, now you can leisurely watch the presentations that interest you in the comfort of your own home. As a novelty I recommend you watch at least the presentations about update on robotic bronchoscopy (D. Fielding and S. Murgu), 3D airway stents (N. Guibert), thoracic ultrasonography (I.Psallidas), or AI and tele-cytology (S. Paul).

Watching on the couch has the great advantage that if the talk is boring, or the presenter is annoying, you can access (without anyone seeing you) the fast forward button.  However, if the presentation is very interesting, you can stop, come back, analyze, and pay attention to certain details that would otherwise be missed.

Watching online does not replace the professional networking that takes place at a congress, but who stops you from writing an email to the author and initiating a discussion if you have questions or if there is a potential for collaboration? Because speakers’ emails are easy to find, they must at least have one article published and be listed in PubMed as the lead author, otherwise they should not be a speaker, right?

Enjoy this golden pot of bronchoscopy information, perhaps more than I enjoyed critically reviewing now my talk post congress in front of my family, who picked up at least ten language English mistakes and some wardrobe malfunction. They didn’t even listen to my whole talk and switched to the real Netflix, for some “real drama”, but even this experience was useful.

Tudor Toma, FRCP, PhD
EABIP Secretary

London, May 22, 2022