Dinner Meeting vs Webinar for a GP talk

By Dr Irwin Lim, Rheumatologist

2 more GP talks will end my speaking engagements for the year.

Next week, with my fellow rheumatologists, Herman Lau, Andrew Jordan & Roberto Russo, we’ll be presenting cases to highlight how ideas have changed surrounding a variety of the inflammatory conditions we treat.

This will be held in a private room at a local restaurant in the Hills District of Sydney. Dinner meetings rely on doctors being energetic enough after a long day at work to attend a talk. The dinner is usually so-so. The GPs listen and hopefully engage for a couple of hours. With Sydney traffic, it’s usually a fight to get to the venue. If the weather is bad, turn-out suffers.

We expect up to 15 GPs to turn up. Sydney GPs are apparently spoiled for choice with a variety of evening talks from different specialities through the week so turn out tends to be variable.

The following week, I’m presenting a webinar, my second (read about my 1st experience here).

It’s much more convenient for me. I’ll be home. No added travel. After the webinar, I can immediately get on with my usual routines.

I assume it’s more convenient for the GPs as well. I hope the webinar attracts different GPs, with different commitments, and at different stages of their lives.

This time, we are aiming for a wider audience. The web solution being used can apparently cope with 50 people watching the webinar. Hopefully, there’s actually that much interest!

Still, it is a commitment to attend, either in person or on the computer. GPs are time-poor and many different craft groups are fighting for their attention. I’m not sure how they choose and it’s likely the GPs in most need of an update are least likely to attend.

So, trialling new ways to reach a broader audience and to make it easier to listen seems sensible.