Arlington is fun central!

By Kate McCann

The Texas Academy of Family Physicians invites you and your family to Arlington to celebrate family medicine at the 60th Annual Session and Scientific Assembly July 15-19 in Arlington. With 24 hours of high-quality CME available, myriad business meetings and special events, and lots of local attractions, TAFP’s largest symposium is sure to showcase the best of the specialty.

This year’s activities will be held in the Sheraton Arlington Hotel and Arlington Convention Center, where you’ll be able to visit with exhibitors, immerse yourself in the general session topics, participate in TAFP’s business meetings and celebrate the special events. Best of all, the conference location puts you in the middle of fun central—Arlington—which has attractions for all tastes. Experience the rides of Six Flags Over Texas and Hurricane Harbor amusement parks, catch a Texas Rangers baseball game, or take a stroll through history at the Legends of the Game Baseball Museum and Children’s Learning Center.

Don’t forget to leave your Saturday night open as we celebrate the installation of incoming TAFP President K. Ashok Kumar, M.D., of San Antonio at the brand-new Texas Stadium. That’s right, before the games begin, get a sneak peak at the new home of America’s team, the Dallas Cowboys. Tickets for the event will be available for purchase with your conference registration and include a complimentary T-shirt and koozie.

TAFP has partnered with the National Procedures Institute to provide attendees the opportunity to earn an extra 15.25 Prescribed AAFP CME credits. Attendees of the one-and-a-half-day Stress ECG Testing seminar July 15-16 will learn how to incorporate this procedure into current practice.

Want help meeting your maintenance of certification requirements? TAFP will also offer a Self-Assessment Module Workshop in Maternity Care on July 15.

In honor of TAFP’s 60th Annual Session, the TAFP Foundation will continue the $60-for-60 campaign begun at last year’s Annual Session. Through the campaign, the TAFP Foundation encourages members to donate $60 or more to the Foundation in honor of this milestone for family medicine. A limited number of special donors who give $100 will receive VIP treatment in the CME classroom with a reserved seating area, executive-style chairs and other perks. You’ll spend hours sitting; you may as well learn in style! This year’s CME topics include type II diabetes, ADHD, hypertension, pain management, dementia, acute coronary syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, overactive bladder, vaccine coding, obesity, manipulation therapy and the medical home.

Between Friday CME sessions, support family medicine research by visiting the student, resident and community physician poster displays. Posters will be displayed Friday in the Exhibit Hall, the center of all the action. The Exhibit Hall opens with breakfast Friday morning and stays open until Saturday afternoon. Take the opportunity to learn about new products and services, interact with health care professionals and receive information on the latest advancements in medicine.

Don’t forget to attend TAFP Foundation and TAFP business meetings while at Annual Session. At the commission, committee, task force, section and Board of Directors meetings, family physicians will gather to discuss and form policy on all of the issues important to family medicine. All materials will be available online before the conference in the Members-Only section of the TAFP Web site, www.tafp.org/membersonly.

The Section on Special Constituencies invites attendees to participate in the annual service project, Physicians With Heart, which allows physicians the opportunity to give back to a clinic in the Annual Session host city. This year’s monetary donations benefit the Bob Mann Clinic in Arlington. Donate on the Annual Session registration form or online through the Foundation Web site.

For a full CME schedule, business schedule, to register online and access all of the conference details, go to the Annual Session section of www.tafp.org.

Conference information

When: July 15-19, 2009
Where: Arlington, Texas

Sheraton Arlington Hotel
1500 Convention Center Drive
Arlington, Texas 76011
(817) 261-8200

Arlington Convention Center
1200 Ballpark Way
Arlington, Texas 76011

Room rate and registration info

TAFP has negotiated a special group rate at the Sheraton Arlington Hotel, $129 for a single or double room. The room block is available until June 23 or until all rooms are reserved, whichever comes first. Contact the Sheraton at (817) 261-8200 or visit the Annual Session hotel page of www.tafp.org to book your room online. Be sure to mention that you are with the Texas Academy of Family Physicians to receive this special group rate.

Register online at www.tafp.org. For more information, call (512) 329-8666.