2012 D8 Meeting
People are Animals Too!
Mark your calendars now: The 2013 District 8 AALAS meeting is set for Portland, Oregon, April 3-5. District meetings are a great way to experience the continuing education, networking, interaction with vendors, and camaraderie of a national AALAS meeting, but a bit scaled down and more relaxed. The venue is the Red Lion Hotel at Jantzen Beach. The meeting theme is “People are Animals, Too: The Human Side of Laboratory Animal Medicine”. The theme will encompass topics such as training, outreach, occupational health and safety, pro-research activism, One Medicine, compassion fatigue, and management concerns. A secondary focus will be working with the newest version of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, as well as the AVMA’s updated guidelines on euthanasia.
There will be an opening night reception to kick off the meeting. Two tracks of presentations will run each day. A planning committee has been busy lining up keynote speakers and brainstorming fun and educational events, including tours of some local research facilities. Technician fun fairs (kind of like a scavenger hunt; one each day) are in the works, so there will be some extra challenge for technician attendees. Hands-on workshops are being planned, to provide opportunities to learn and practice new skills. Posters will be on display, and there will be awards for best posters in several categories; start planning now so you’ll be ready when the call for submissions is announced late this year. A day prior to the meeting, the Northwest Association for Biomedical Research is planning a one day IACUC training workshop as well. The district meeting is a terrific and relatively inexpensive way to share information, learn more about our field, and meet others who understand and share the commitment to laboratory animal science. Plan to be there!
