Ethical and regulatory bodies around the world are taking a serious cognizance of industry sponsorship of individual physicians for medical conferences. Public opinion is also in its favor though physicians are exhibiting lot of resistance to change. The best possible solution is to deliver these meetings on a digital platform transparently for the educational need of physicians. Sooner the change comes, better it is.

1. To sustain, Medical conferences
need digital metamorphosis
Dr. S K Agarwal
MD, DM, FACC, CBCCT
Consultant Interventional Cardiologist
Rashid Hospital, Dubai, UAE
Example of TCT

2. Change is the law of the universe
&
To progress continuously, evolution is required
Change is painful
Better take pain to turn to wisdom
Staying stuck, only leads to dark abyss of regret

3. TCT 2016
• Total number of attendees=12000+
• Number of countries=100+

4. TCT 2017
Costs for a attendee (i.e. industry)
Visa
Airfare (one return airfare in business class by emirates for TCT dates)
Lodging (Ramada Denver downtown for 5 nights from 10/28/2017 to 11/02/2017-B&B only)
Registration (done by 06/21/2017 for full conference)
$
Visa 300
Airfare 8155
Lodging 600
Registration 1699
Total 10,754
Total cost per attendee sponsored by industry !

5. Problems faced by attendees
• Visa and immigration-political mudslinging
• Carbon footprint-by airtravel
• Lost working hours at workplace
• Jet lag
• Inadequate attention for scientific contents
• Tourism pressures
• Sponsorship issues
• Ethical and legal issues
• Burden on industry → Inflated cost of devices
→less number of procedures
We don’t want to be regulatory body, but don’t want to be a part of dark side

7. INDIA

9. Changes in India
• Sponsorship by industry is not acceptable
• Physicians have been served notices and in
some cases license revoked
• Government of India has pressured industry to
bring down cost of devices
• Changes have not gone down well with
medical community

11. TCT-USA 2018 satellites
• East Asia- Bangkok / Kuala lumpur
• India- Delhi
• Middle East- Dubai
• China- Beijing
• South Africa
• Brazil
• ………..
What is merely required is Retransmission of live cases

12. TCT contents most attended
Live streaming to select centres around world
• Main Arena
• Coronary theater
• Endovascular theater
Q & A: TCT on twitter
# need to be created for every lecture and registered users can ask the questions using
twitter within 24 hrs. one tweet per question and max 2 question per user . Twitter limits
the length of question and answer both.

13. TCT on Google
• Smaller rooms presentations can be uploaded
at TCTmd or a separate platform and seen
either same day or by next day. Need to be in
a format to be seen easily at low internet
speeds.
• Digital count of attendees
• Pay per hour TCT

14. Advantage to industry
Reduced costs
Increasing number of clients
Better management
Advantages to CRF-TCT
•Same educational content
•Widest possible reach
•Constant growth in number of attendees
Global advantages
No carbon footprint
Less visa issues
No cultural issues

15. • Change is hard at first
• Messy in the middle
• Gorgeous in the end
Robin Sharma