This year I attended my first AADE national meeting and came away with so much! There were over 100 educational sessions to choose from – ranging from novice to expert level - in addition to general sessions with motivating speakers, workshops, poster presentation and vendor displays. The best piece of advice I received before the meeting was to utilize the AADE online planner to keep track of the sessions and events that were of interest. This certainly helped keep me on track and not feel overwhelmed by the many offerings. A few of the overarching themes of the meeting were obesity and the importance of individualizing patient care. Here is a summary of a few of my personal favorite sessions/events:
The Communities of Interest (COI) networking session was very well attended and a great opportunity for me to meet fellow pharmacist educators. We shared best practices and heard about the many opportunities to get involved in the pharmacy COI. I was particularly interested in one colleague’s experience offering an elective diabetes course to pharmacy students. She was able to arrange for the students to visit a dialysis center to better understand that patient population. The poster session was another opportunity to network and see what others are doing in practice.
During one of the general sessions Dr. Sharma shared his “5As” of obesity management, providing practical suggestions of how to discuss this sensitive topic without being judgmental. His advice to “simply acknowledge the fact that weight management and obesity management are difficult” seems like something we should all be able to do. I also attended a session titled “Diabesity: The New Tardive Dyskinesia?” where two RNs reviewed the link between antipsychotic medications and obesity and diabetes. The speakers reviewed the medications and talked about the challenges in treating patients with mental illness. The session was a reminder of the importance of communication between all the health care professionals that help care for patients.
In the session on lipid treatment guidelines, Drs. Dixon and Sisson reviewed the ADA recommendations for lipid management and presented trial data addressing combination therapy. I loved Dr. Dixon’s analogy “adding niacin is kind of like adding snow tires to your car in summertime. You can do it. It’s not going to cause any harm, but there is really no need for it.”
Just as new ATP guidelines for cholesterol have not been released, hypertension guidelines have not been updated either. Two PharmDs gave a great talk nonetheless reviewing trial data on blood pressure goals in different patient populations including elderly and those with CKD and speculating on what changes we can anticipate in JNC-8.
Another talk very applicable to my practice was titled “Choosing Glycemic Targets: A Patient Centered Approach”. The speakers thoroughly reviewed the ADA/EASD position statement on management of hyperglycemia and through patient cases demonstrated how to apply these guidelines when individualizing treatment goals and choosing antihyperglycemic therapy. The speakers re-affirmed some of my current practices, while also providing new insight.