PCR 2016 Conference

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The 2016 PCR conference was held at Resort at Squaw Creek in beautiful North Lake Tahoe, California. While the snow has gone from the roads and lower elevations, the mountain still had enough snow to ski, snowboard, sled, or just enjoy the beauty all around. The hotel accommodations were wonderful as was the service throughout the conference.

First time and returning attendees were drawn to the picturesque setting as attendance was up to 168 this year, including 41 first time attendees, 16 new wound, ostomy, and continence nurses, and four from out of state. We were so excited to see so many new faces!

We were also happy to see 61 vendors attending, up from 42 last year. The vendor exhibit room was very large and easily accommodated all the vendors and attendees. Several open exhibit times were scheduled throughout the conference allowing attendees plenty of time to visit the many booths. Attendees also had the opportunity to attend vendor sponsored meals including breakfast and lunch during the conference and vendor sponsored dinners on Friday night. Thank you to Daphne for working so diligently to obtain such a large variety and number of vendors. It was exciting to learn about so many new and alternative products available.

Charleen Deo Singh, our Education Director, did a fantastic job pulling together a variety of speakers both familiar and new, covering a wide breadth of information. We were so happy to have Dr. Daughty, Dr. Bates-Jenson, Dr. Black, and Dr. Bobonich back to share new information and knowledge regarding wound and ostomy care. It was an immense pleasure to welcome first time speaker Laura Cox, ostomate and ostomy lifestyle expert for Shield Health Care who provided an in depth look at the patient perspective. We were also treated to a moving presentation by Youth Rally President and CEO, Paul Hastings during the membership meeting and were excited to extend the deadline for the youth rally sponsorship by unanimous decision until May 15th.

The general membership meeting was held Saturday afternoon and was well attended. We were happy to formally welcome Joyce Moss back to the Board of Directors in the Membership position, which she assumed in February. We bid goodbye and thank you for the years of service to Linda Schultz, who held the public relations position. The board has decided to remove the position as a cost savings measure and the responsibilities of public relations will be absorbed by the rest of the board.

We were very pleased to see an increase in award nominations this year. Thank you for taking the time to recognize your colleagues! Janice Stanfield was awarded the Lifetime Achievement award. Manufacturer of the Year went to Southwest Technologies for consistently producing fantastic conference booklets. The Rep of the Year award went to Lorenzo Jackson for his hard work and support while at Acility-KCI.

Congratulations to Denis Nakatani for winning the 50/50 raffle drawing and to Wendy Ryan, Alijandra Cruz-Tokar, and April Resendiz for winning the drawing for free PCR 2017 conference registration or hotel stay.

PCR will again host a social and have a booth at The National/Joint CA Conference in June. We will be securing a larger room to accommodate all of the PCR members in attendance at the social. We were very excited to see so many people sign up to work the booth during the membership meeting. We will send out an email as the conference approaches with more information about the social and the booth.

We hope that everyone who attended the 2016 conference had a wonderful, educational, and inspirational time. We hope that you were able to take some new information, tips, or techniques back with you to work the following week and that you will spread the word about the PCR conference. Please mark your calendars for our 2017 conference, which will return to February and will be held in beautiful, sunny Newport Beach. Specific dates, hotel and conference information will be up on the website as it is finalized and you will receive email updates as new information is available.