This past weekend I had the opportunity to travel to Sun Valley, Idaho and participate in the Idaho Academy of Physician Assistants (IAPA) annual conference. It was the first conference I’ve ever attended pertaining to my career. At first I was reluctant to go. I knew that it was going to be three days of lectures and that many of them would be on topics that, at the time, didn’t interest me. Plus, since the beginning of PA school I’ve spent eight hours a day, almost every day, of the school week in class listening through many lectures. Many of these lectures have bored me. So as you can see I was reluctant to go to sit through more lectures. However, I decided to go for the experience. It was a free trip out of Pocatello to a place that is somewhat similar to Park City, Utah. As it turned out, I enjoyed the trip and the conference more than I thought I would.
Sun Valley was a great place to go visit. It’s a secluded place located smack dab in the middle of Southern Idaho. The drive wasn’t the most exciting drive that I’ve been on. Southern Idaho doesn’t have much to offer in terms of beautiful scenery. It was basically dead plains. However, once you start to arrive close to Sun Valley you enter into the Sawtooth Mountains and the scenery changes. The mountains encircled about on every side and towered above all. They were covered with pine trees and plenty of snow. It was a site very different to that which I’m used to in Pocatello. It reminded me a lot of Huntsville and the Ogden Valley. It was a beautiful scene.
The condos that we stayed in were very comfortable and well furnished. I first thought that we accidentally entered into someone else’s home because of the way it was furnished. There was a colage of family pictures on the walls and books on the bookshelf. There were three rooms and we stayed 5-6 in each condo. We didn’t spend much time in the condos though because of the other things we did.
Like I said, the conference was actually more enjoyable than I thought it would be. There was a schedule of one hour lectures with lunch and breaks in between. These breaks were spent in another hall area were many pharmaceutical vendors, medical equipment suppliers, and other vendors had set up little booths to provide information on their respective products. As with all “reps” there was plenty of free stuff to be taken. Most of it is used around the office and probably for me useless, but it was there and free so why not take it? I’m sure I can make good use of it. I’ve had to opportunities to receive lunches from reps while I worked in the hospital but I actually enjoyed more this encounter. I was able to speak one on one with many reps and also learn a little on how to differentiate from those who are just saying what they’ve been trained to say and those who actually know what they’re talking about.
I didn’t attend all the lectures but the majority that I did attend I enjoyed. The two that I got the most from were titled “Oppositional Defiant Disorders” and “New Techniques.” The one on new techniques touched on the subject of deep brain stimulation and new cervical spine surgery techniques that do not require fusion on the cervical (neck) vertebrae. After that lecture I was able to talk with the doctor who presented it. For a neurosurgeon, he was actually a decent man. His care and humanistic approach to medicine was evident in the way that he presented his lecture and while talking to him afterwards.
When not attending lectures and during the evening times we explored the city of Ketchum (where the Sun Valley resort is located) and also took advantage of the opportunities the resort had to offer. We went to a couple different art galleries, one of oil paintings and bronze sculptures. There was not a piece in that gallery that was less than $5,000.00. The priciest piece there was a bronze eagle that went for $30,000. That’s more than I paid for my house and Jeep combined, and to me, not something that I would collect. That kind of art just didn’t appeal to me. The other gallery that we went to was that of a nature photographer. The theme of this gallery was that of the western United States. There were many pictures of bears and wolves and many other sites in nature that you would expect to find out in the west. If anyone has seen the Discover channel series Planet Earth they would enjoy and recognize the beauty of these pictures displayed in this gallery. The price ranged from two to five hundred dollars. Although this is still a high price, especially for a poor college student, I could justify spending the money because it is something that I would like to have in my home someday.
One night we all got together in the lounge of one of the resorts inns to watch the Jazz take on the Spurs. Probably one of the most relaxing places to watch a basketball game. The seats were comfortable, the food was good, the TV was big, and the Jazz rocked the Spurs. I’m sure that the others who were in the lounge of the inn became annoyed with us as we were cheering the Jazz on but that really didn’t matter. Afterwards we went and enjoyed the heated pools of the lodge.
I could easily enjoy living this kind of life. However, I know that it isn’t a life that I would live constantly. It’s a type of life that is only to be enjoyed after much work. It’s a life to be “earned” and enjoyed occasionally rather than “deserved” and enjoyed constantly. The real joys of life come from that with family and service to others.
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