CAGP 2008 Annual Scientific Meeting held in Vancouver, BC on September 3 & 4
This year the CAGP and CCSMH is co-hosting a national conference on the mental health of seniors, just prior to the CPA Annual Conference (Sep 4-7). The CAGP Annual Scientific Meeting will be held on September 4 on the current challenges in geriatric psychiatry, just following the CCSMH National Conference on the future of geriatric mental health in Canada. Since the event is in Vancouver the conference will be delivered entirely in English, despite CAGP being a bilingual organization.
The goal of this year’s conference is to provide delegates with up-to-date knowledge, an opportunity to exchange ideas and network with colleagues from across Canada. Rough estimates indicate a 10% increase in the participation of non-physicians at this year’s conference, which means that physicians will be networking with more professionals from a variety of different disciplines all with an interest in geriatric mental health.
Registration for this year’s conference was offered online making it possible for delegates to register and pay via credit card for the first time. This has been a great success as 95% of the registrations fees have been received before the conference, with the remaining 5% opting to pay either onsite or by mailing their cheques into the office. The online registration has also improved the process of collecting information and registering delegates, with confirmations being received almost immediately.
This year’s event has experienced a considerable increase in interest and registrations. We are happy to report that spaces on both days of the conference were almost completely sold out just 1 week before the event and in response the online registration was closed. In addition, the CAGP Conference has typically had a number of onsite registrations and in anticipation of this additional theatre seating has been added to the back of the main plenary room.
Due to the number of delegates expected and the available space in the registration area an Advanced Registration time is being offered on Tuesday, September 2 from 6:30pm to 8:30 pm.
Next years event will be returning to Montreal on Monday, August 31, 2009 prior to the IPA 14th International Congress (September 1-5, 2009). Next year will be back to a 1 day event and as always we welcome any feedback and ideas from the CAGP Membership on potential topics and speakers.
- Could you suggest a general theme for the meeting?
- Is there a particular subject that you would like to be covered?
- Could you suggest the name of two speakers: one would be local (Montreal area) while the other could be coming from anywhere else within Canada or the U.S.?
Dr. Martha Donnelly
Chair – ASM 2008