Julian attended the EWMA (European Wound Management Association). Firstly you might ask, “What do the EWMA do?” The association works to promote the advancement of education and research into epidemiology, pathology, diagnosis, prevention and management of wounds of all varieties. EWMA brings all wound management associations across Europe together with individuals and organisations interested in wound management. 

Here Julian talks about what happened and what he has come away with.               

“The meeting was first of all a showcase for RAFT’s partnership with the Lindsey Leg Club. We had a brilliant poster about the development of our partnership and what we are aspiring to achieve – to have a direct link between the grass root of caring for people with chronic wounds, and research which is working hard to improve the treatments available. This two-way traffic aims to educate us as scientists at RAFT, about real clinical issues, and to disseminate our work to leg club members, to create interest, invite contact and support our research effort.

I am especially grateful to Ellie Lindsey and the leg club foundation for their enthusiastic partnering promoting RAFT’s work, and great networking activities. This was given a real boost by having fliers on a display stand, and also a brand new banner displaying the ethos of our partnership. EWMA is a large meeting both in terms of clinical and academic delegates and also commercial exhibitors, a significant percentage of whom have come away knowing of RAFT and its work.

Following on from this, I was able to find out about many of the latest commercial developments in woundcare, seeing both innovation and understanding limitations of various technologies. This is not just surveying ‘the competition’, but looking for possible synergies and appreciating good examples of translational science.

The heart of the conference was a very packed schedule of talks, mainly in parallel sessions, as is the norm in international meetings. On this note it is remarkable that wound healing has grown to such a hive of activity from being a non-discipline in the last 20 years. Although this does mean having to be relaxed about missing some things and being selective, it is extremely difficult to be bored! I came away learning a lot. One of the good things about meetings is being surprised, meeting people from very different countries and backgrounds, finding interest in talks which sound way off topic, and testing out ideas and understandings with the elder statesmen of the discipline. Certainly I have come away with greater knowledge and understanding and clearer ideas about how Smart Matrix will need to be used, and how we might achieve this.

The only downside – no time for sightseeing!”

So all in all why are conferences so important? In this case Julian was able to meet and talk to various people from all over the world, to hear about current work, what the future holds, to spread the word of RAFT and to really see how our research really will help others.