San Diego, Calif., is the site of the 2008 AAFP Scientific Assembly, the premier family medicine gathering, September 17 through 21. This year's program promises to be interesting and invigorating. Attendees will have a chance to get hands-on experience in new clinical procedures, obtain continuing medical education (CME) credits, learn about the latest clinical guidelines and practice recommendations, meet new friends, and get reacquainted with their colleagues from around the world.

Some special events this year include a luncheon for new physicians (registration required), a resident reunion at a casual reception, a special constituencies reception, and a Physicians with Heart presentation and reception featuring a slide show of the 2007 Tajikistan airlift.

This has been an important political year for family medicine, and two political insiders will be at Assembly to discuss health care issues at the opening session. Terry McAuliffe, former Democratic National Committee chairman and past chairman of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, will join John Kasich, former Ohio congressman and former chairman of the House Budget Committee to discuss their views and respond to questions about health care issues submitted to the Academy.

Attendees can choose from more than 200 CME course offerings. Just a few of the topic categories are: bone and joint diseases, cancer, care of older adults, career management, cultural issues, research, quality improvement, sleep disorders, sports medicine, pain management, and tobacco cessation.

For additional information about all the events at the Annual Scientific Assembly, including the many available CME courses, go to https://www.aafp.org/assembly.

AAFP Publications Exhibit

The exhibition hall is always a popular attraction at the annual Assembly. Several hundred exhibitors will be there to offer information about medical equipment and devices, electronic health records, and other career- and patient-oriented resources. At the Academy's Publications Division exhibit (booth numbers 3931, 3933, and 3935), medical and professional editors and other staff members of American Family Physician (AFP), Family Practice Management (FPM), and Annals of Family Medicine will be available from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday and Friday, September 18 and 19, and 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, September 20, to answer any questions or listen to your comments and suggestions about any or all of the journals.

We will be giving away flash drives loaded with PDFs from the Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Toolkit from AFP to anyone who completes our reader survey at Assembly. The PDFs will also include links to additional information on the Web site. The tools include:

• the EBM glossary of common terms and abbreviations used in evidence-based medicine and criteria of various study types;

• guidelines for rating the strength of recommendations in clinical review articles;

• a list of evidence-based resources recommended by the Academy;

• links to EBM features and departments in AFP; and

• other EBM resources from AFP.

The flash drive also will contain tools from FPM to help you manage your practice. These include:

• coding and documentation information (e.g., a coding frequency comparison worksheet);

• patient encounter forms specific to several conditions;

• a diabetes checkup questionnaire and flow sheet;

• an electronic medical record (EMR) cost-analysis spreadsheet and other tools to facilitate the EMR selection process; and

• patient handouts related to billing, insurance, and prescriptions.

Attendees also can see a demonstration of FPM's new digital edition, which will be launched with the November/December issue.

Reader Feedback

You can give us your feedback any time via the AFP reader feedback card available in the CME Quiz section of the first issue of each month or by sending an e-mail to afpedit@aafp.org.