Big conference

Health care professionals from all over the world are in town this week for a major medical conference.

Rendez-Vous 2012 has drawn more than 850 people from almost 50 countries combining five world medical conferences into one right here in Thunder Bay.

“The overarching conference theme is community participation,” Northern Ontario School of Medicine dean Roger Strasser said. “It’s about community members being actively involved in research in the education of future health professionals.”

Being triple the size of any one medical conference, Rendez-Vous 2012 will host around 400 workshops from Tuesday until Sunday when it wraps up. Along with the economic benefit of having so many visitors to the city, Strasser said conference members will visit 30 community health care sites on the weekend. The information exchanged between everyone will benefit communities all over the world.

“We’ll be sharing our experiences and we’ll be learning from the visitors who share their experiences,” he said.

More than 300 medical students will also benefit from the conference by networking with educators, researchers and other students.

“I expect that they will learn from the questions that are asked of them from their experience as medical students here in northwestern Ontario,” Strasser said.

Over the past two years, conference officials have been preparing for the event. Strasser said getting the five partners together took a lot of work.

“It’s been many years in preparation for this conference.”