Are international conferences useful?
There are so many professional associations worldwide that represent a wide variety of professions and professional groups. One of these is a organization called i-Fab. They are the International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics association that is a multidisciplinary organization of industry experts who have an interest in foot and ankle biomechanics. They're made up of academics, physicians, podiatrists, orthopaedic physicians, engineers, physiotherapists and other health care professionals, footwear industry individuals, insole/orthotic suppliers, surgical products manufacturers and connected areas. They are an incredibly diverse organization. The association goals to provide information about the worldwide activities associated with foot and ankle biomechanics. They connect individuals who are getting work done in the foot and ankle biomechanics discipline irrespective of their location and discipline they are from. Additionally they would like to facilitate discussion on major issues of interest for the worldwide group and make coordinated community wide activities. Above all they are planning to develop a profile for an global critical mass of research activities that are associated with foot and ankle biomechanics.
As a consequence among their main actions is an international convention which is held every 2 yrs. This convention moves around the world and it has been held by a number of different countries. The 2018 iFab meeting was held in New York in the USA. An episode of PodChatLive was devoted to a comments on that conference. PodChatLive is a regular live show for podiatrists and after the conference the hosts had a conversation of a lot of the relevant and interesting papers which were presented at the conference. This discussion was live on Facebook. It was later published to YouTube and made available as a podcast version obtainable form most of the podcast services. It was a unique strategy taken by the hosts to analyze a meeting, because they typically have an alternative guest on each month to go over a subject. It is not known if they are going to try and cover the 2020 conference.