I don’t do conferences. I don’t care how much continuing medical education credit I get or how exotic the location is. I just don’t care.
I get ads for them all the time, too: head trauma, stroke review, modern headache management, epilepsy 2013, and so on. I do my reading at home and cram CME in where I can.
Solo practice is an "eat what you kill" world. If I’m not seeing patients, I’m not getting paid. So I have a very strong incentive not to leave my office. If I’m going to take time off and spend money to travel, I want to enjoy it with my family, not cooped up in a conference room with other neurologists. Besides, like most doctors, I’m conditioned to nod off as soon as the slides start.
I’m not into networking, either. I’m in solo practice to avoid other neurologists. Why on Earth would I want to spend money to hang out with a group of them? I don’t need call coverage or anyone to collaborate with on research or to argue with (I have my kids for that).
Also, travel isn’t cheap. Going to the American Academy of Neurology meeting next April? Registration is a few hundred bucks. More if you actually want to attend many of the education classes. Of course, I’m in Arizona, and the meeting is in Philly. So I have to factor in plane fare, then a hotel room for 3-7 nights (depending on how long I stay), meals, taxis ... It adds up fast. Unless you’ve got an institution paying, it can be steep. On top of it all (at least in my world), the costs include how much I’m NOT earning from being out of the office.
The fact that it’s a business tax deduction doesn’t matter to me. In solo practice, I am the business. Anything spent, regardless of tax status, still comes out of my salary when it’s all over.
So I stay at my office and limit travel to being with my family. After all, they are whom I really work for.
Dr. Block has a solo neurology practice in Scottsdale, Ariz.