Attendance at an academic meeting: Does it change clinical practice

Questionnaires were sent to 203 active members of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association (COA) registered for the annual meeting in 1994. The questionnaire was designed to determine whether attendance at the academic meeting changed the practice patterns of attending Orthopaedic surgeons and to determine factors that correlated with a change. A response rate of 89.2% was achieved and 63.5% reported a change in their practice as a result of the meeting. General orthopaedists were more likely to change their practice pattern (43/59, 72.9%) than orthopaedists with subspecialty practices (69/119, 58%), p=0.07. Sixty-five (71.4%) of community surgeons changed their practice versus 50 (55.6%) university affiliated surgeons. Attendance at structured meeting events by hours/day correlated positively with effecting a change in practice (p=0.009). The most frequent aspects of clinical practice to change were surgical technique (79.1%) and preoperative decision-making (74.8%). Use of a new implant was least likely to change (39.1%). The most influential facets of the meeting were the symposia and the instructional courses which were reported as extremely or very important by 67.8% and 65.2%, respectively. Technical exhibits had the least effect with only 17.4% of surgeons reporting this as important. The most common reason given by surgeons who did not change their clinical practice was that nothing new was presented (40.9%) or the surgeon preferred to have the results confirmed by other centres (33.3%). Only 4.5% said they would not change because they were uncomfortable performing new techniques. Attendance at the meeting was motivated primarily by interaction with colleagues (71.8%) and the desire to obtain new knowledge (66.3%). Only 10.5% reported obtaining CME credits as being an important reason far attending the meeting. This survey suggests that attendance at an academic meeting does induce a change in clinical practice patterns of orthopaedic surgeons and clarifies factors associated with a change.