Tinnitus Research Initiative (TRI) 2019 Conference

Last year's conference took place in Regensburg, Germany.
Read the TRI 2018 conference report by @Steve.

Now it's time for the TRI 2019 conference in Taipei, Taiwan.
In 2020 the conference will be held in Vancouver, Canada.

This year some notable keynote speakers include Dr. Susan Shore.

• Tentative Program
• Invited Speakers

We (Tinnitus Hub) will have representation at the conference, and are planning to report as much as possible.

Time:
17-19 May 2019

Location:
Taipei, Taiwan

Website:
http://2019.tri-conf.org/

 

Yes, I will be going to Taipei for the TRI conference soon!

Very excited, but also slightly nervous about the responsibility to adequately represent you guys there. In fact, it seems we might be the ONLY patient organisation present, which makes it all the more important to get the most out of it.

Our plan is threefold:

1. Attend as many interesting talks as possible, take notes, and report back to you guys;
2. Network, network, network - Are there researchers looking for patient input or involvement? Other collaboration opportunities? I'll be on the look-out;
3. We are arranging a professional cameraman to follow me around while I conduct interviews with as many interesting researchers as I can. This could result in a great video series, if all goes well (but if there's one thing I've learned about video projects by now is how many things can go wrong!).

Of course, I'm trying to do the job of three people by myself. Quite stressful, and inevitable that I'll not be able to cover all three aspects in the depth I would like. But I promise to do my best!

Read more about the conference here, and the tentative programme here.

Any input is much appreciated, but must be in by 13th of April, or I won't have time to prepare.

 

Yep, I had those on my list as most interesting as well! Might not be able to attend all three though, since I'll be conducting interviews at the same time ... Which is probably why I'll skip the other two you mentioned, unless I can find a way to clone myself

THANKS!!!

 

Thanks @Frédéric!

This wouldn't be the same at all, it would lead to very poor quality and we would miss the personal interaction and sense of location. We're striving to make a high quality video series and the long distance set-up just doesn't work for that; nobody will want to watch that (well, maybe a few hard core folks here on the forum, but definitely a small group).

We've been in touch with the conference organisers and a few others about this, and they assured us it should be possible, and some participants have in fact already agreed; after all, it will only cost them 10 minutes or so (they will be quick interviews). In a way it's easier to grab people on the spot than to get them to set a date and time in their normal daily schedule - we have experience with this when trying to set dates with our podcast guests, it can take months! So we're quite set on this approach

I don't think this is the case unfortunately, but if it is I will surely ask them to share with us!

We're very much aware that this is not an ideal situation, with me not being able to attend all the talks and having to split my attention so much. In fact, even if I were not doing anything else, I could still only attend 50% of the talks since they are all in parallel!

The ideal situation would be to go there with a delegation of 3 people, then you can really cover all the bases. But we'd have to get funding for that; we were very lucky to even get funding for this though!

 

Oh, thanks for the tip! I will make sure to get an interview with him. What should I ask him to talk about?

 

His name is not on the list, because (as I've learned from my interactions with tinnitus researchers so far), no one in the tinnitus research field takes him seriously anymore. He's simply not considered relevant to modern day tinnitus research.

As far as the CBT monopoly goes, that's debatable. Recent tinnitus research initiatives like TIN-ACT and ESIT (both of which we're a partner of) are heavily focussed on etiology, animal studies, neurology, etc. In ESIT for instance, only one of the 15 PhD students takes a psychological approach, so that's less than 7% of the funding. Their reasoning is that these studies still have value as long as they also tie in with the other approaches, i.e. it should all be interdisciplinary, and the different fields can inform each other.

If you look at the TRI conference programme, I think there's only two talks or so explicitly from a psychological angle, out of dozens of time slots, so I don't see a monopoly there either.

I think the monopoly you speak of is mostly present in the clinical world (for obvious reasons, i.e. it's the only tool they can really offer their patients), but not so much anymore in the research world. I'm happy to be corrected though.

 

You should represent us there, Erik! Would you be willing to do that?

 

Yay! We should be able to get an awesome delegation together then. Much easier than Taipei

Can't wait for 2020!!!

 

Tomorrow @Hazel is traveling to Taipei for the Tinnitus Research Initiative conference! She's going in spite of the fact that her mom suffered a stroke and is currently in the hospital. She didn't want to disappoint any of you by cancelling the trip; that is how much our cause means to her - while obviously she also loves her mom dearly and is deeply concerned (evidence: this week she had to cut short the TIN-ACT meeting in Berlin because of her mom's sudden sickness; she immediately flew to Bath, UK to see her in the hospital, and stayed there for a couple of days taking care of her).

The flight is a whopping 13 hours! The plane is a KLM Boeing 777-300ER with a 3-4-3 configuration. We were able to book her an aisle seat, thankfully.

Good thing is that it's a direct flight, unlike on the way back, which has a layover in Paris - overall that one will be 17 hours.

The conference itself starts on Friday, but we have booked some interviews to take place before that.

Hazel will be interviewing, for example, Winfried Schlee, the scientific coordinator of Tinnitus Research Initiative, and many other interesting tinnitus researchers and clinicians!

We'll keep you posted!

Everyone please wish @Hazel good luck! It has been my utmost pleasure to get to know her and have her involved in our work! I greatly respect her and everything she does.