2019 Pharmacy Meetings: 5 Trends

I've said it before and I'll say it again: pharmacy and healthcare are complicated. In an effort to make my own life easier, I started tracking pharmacy meetings back in 2015. My tracker then had maybe 80ish meetings on it. I like to plan ahead and spend my limited funds and time wisely on choosing the BEST pharmacy meetings that meet my needs for my career during the year. Now that 2018 is almost over, I'm planning ahead for the new year and just finished up a major update on the 2019 Pharmacy Meetings and Orgs Calendar.

But, why I began tracking meetings in 2015 was due to the VARIETY and QUANTITY of pharmacy and healthcare meetings out there. Since then, my lists for 2018 and now 2019 are well over 5 pages each, with hundreds of meetings on them. (And yes, I sell the lists, see my article on why here, and don't click on the #s if you're trying to avoid clickbait!) 😉

Here are a few observations I saw while building the pharmacy organizations and healthcare meetings list for 2019 today:

1. #1 City in 2019 for Pharmacy Meetings is....San Diego, CA. There were a TON of meetings there for some reason. (Guess the city may have had a great convention salesperson a few years ago?!) Anyway, hope you like Cali, because several of the meetings are there in 2019. Of course, the usual suspects of Vegas and Orlando were there too, because a few events (like HIMSS and Midyear) are so big that their options are limited by convention space. NOLA popped up quite a bit this coming year too.
2. The most popular month to throw an annual meeting or a conference in pharmacy or pharma is...March. Not terribly surprising, since APhA is that month. October is super popular too. Spring/fall - not surprising. But bullet 4 below surprised me with the Oct meetings....
3. International meetings for the pharmaceutical industry are increasing. The United States of America is definitely not the headquarters for pharmaceuticals anymore. This has definitely gone global, and that's reflected in several of the meetings I track from 2015-2019. London has several meetings in 2019, if you're in pharma, for example.
4. Several groups didn't post their 2019 annual meeting info yet. Particularly if a regular annual meeting is in the fall, (October, primarily) I was shocked by how many associations DID NOT have their annual meeting dates and cities online. Easy Button, please!
5. Pot rules. I was shocked by the increasing number of topics on medical marijuana, and now, its own conference, which just happened and is happening again in 2019! I guess pot is popular, now that 30+ states have made some form of it legal? (It's still, last time I checked, a CI under the federal Controlled Substances Act, I believe...).

There you go. May your 2019 meeting planning go smoothly - there's nothing but SEVERAL HUNDRED pharmacy meetings to choose from now when it comes to professional development.

May you choose wisely.

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Erin L. Albert is a pharmacist and entrepreneur - CEO of Pharm, LLC. She is also senior director of education at ASCP. Opinions here are her own.