Sunday, February 13, 2011

Non-report from the scientific meeting of the Norwegian Hypertension Society

In the Norwegian Hypertension Society (no: Norsk hypertensjonsforening) we have two major events: The CME-course on hypertension, and the scientific winter meeting. They are held every other year. As the secretary I have been holding all sorts of strings: announcements, registration, and such. Then I was supposed to lead a session and hold a presentation, and finally I was going to meet old friends and collaborators and have good time. All in all it was supposed to be a brilliant meeting.

Then a snow storm hit the Uppsala-Stockholm region. My taxi was 20 minutes late, but that turned out not to be a problem because boarding was 30 minutes late. After spending almost two hours on the airplane we were told that the flight was cancelled. Re-booking was impossible, there were 300 people before me in line. Just buying a new ticket on line didn't work. I tried probably ten or fifteen times and it always said that the ticket couldn't be booked.

Anyway, I heard that the meeting was a success. We had the honour of the first presentation of the Scandinavian Candesartan Acute Stroke Trial (SCAST) by Else Sandset. They showed no benefit of strict blood pressure control after acute stroke. It was published the same day in Lancet. This was by no means the only exciting new finding presented, but I shan't bore you too much.

After the scientific meeting there followed the annual meeting of the society where I stood for re-election. I got to continue as secretary in spite of not being there and having moved back to Sweden. Then I missed the dinner.

All this followed last year's failure to hold a CME-course in Trondheim because of the eruption of a volcano on Iceland.

How un-lucky can you be, really?