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The anatomy of a conference

We are in conversation with David Hicks, Chairman of Wigmore Medical and Co-Chair with Dr Lauren Jamieson in designing the Wigmore Presents agenda




Can you tell us about the work that goes into planning Wigmore Medical Presents?
Running Wigmore Medical Presents is a bit like painting the Forth Bridge—as soon as you think you have finished, you start planning for the next year if you want the very best speakers and the very best venue, which for WMP is the Royal College of Physicians. Our speaker faculty is in demand all over the world which means that my co-chair, Dr Lauren Jamieson and I, have to get in quickly to secure them.

Why do you enjoy it so much?
The whole experience is stimulating, it rolls back the years. Our CEO Raffi Eghiayan, 20 years on, is still running the business side of the event while I have always run the scientific agenda, previously singlehandedly but now in partnership with Dr Jamieson, who has done tremendous amounts on skin health and is great to work with. She will sometimes challenge you but in a good way, which makes you stop and think. All of the team behind the show work collaboratively—we are very used to working together and each of us knows our own responsibilities.

What should delegates expect— what’s in it for them?
We are proud to be running agendas over two days which are about the science of products rather than sponsored talks. We have an outline plan of 70 per cent of the agenda but retain 30 per cent for breaking technologies. This year, we will be focusing heavily on the skin microbiome; one of our lead speakers, Dr Anton Enright, heads the Pathology department at Cambridge University. Dr Tim Flynn who gave the opening talk at our inaugural meeting 20 years ago, is still totally relevant. It’s nice to have academics speaking at the conference. Wigmore is also proud that Abbott Laboratories have chosen them for the European launch of Lingo at the conference. Lingo is a version of the Freestyle Libre glucose monitor system, but with the software modified to help it give fantastic assistance to diet and exercise control—a bit like a personal metabolic coach.

* Some lectures will only be accessible to HCPs.







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