Thinking about life in the ‘open days’ when conferences were in-person events

After four months of lockdown in Auckland, it feels strange to think back on the National Rural Health Conference, held at the Wairakei Resort in Taupō earlier this year.

It was the first in-person event in well over 18 months and in the two months prior we had already had two stints at Alert Level 3 in Auckland. So walking into the conference hall on 29 April to see so many familiar faces, felt weird, and a little nostalgic.

The conference opened with a pōwhiri, an emotional awards ceremony and closed with the New Zealand Rural General Practice Network’s annual general meeting, which had the highest recorded turnout of members.

They hugged, laughed and talked, sharing their war stories from the year that brought with it a host of new acronyms: COVID-19, CBAC and PPE, as well as the prospect of major reforms.

Almost two weeks later, there was the 2021 New Zealand Primary Healthcare Awards|He Tohu Mauri Ora at Auckland’s Cordis Hotel.

As New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa reporter Alan Perrott wrote, “you could have run the national grid with the energy buzzing off 660-odd attendees at the ceremony. There was aroha in the air of the boisterous crowd who laughed, danced, cheered and cried their way through the entire evening”.

Then it was time for the New Zealand Doctor team to attend the Rotorua GP CME in June. Last year, the global pandemic forced organisers to run both the GP CME and its South counterpart as virtual events. The RNZCGP’s GP21 conference just slid in for touch in early August.

It felt like quite the blow when, once again the South GP CME had to be turned virtual just two days out from starting due to the Delta outbreak in Auckland on 17 August.

The most recent lockdown saw both the Practice Managers and Administrators Association of New Zealand, and the New Zealand Women in Medicine conferences postponed.

Both groups are hoping to run their events in 2022.