Broadsheet: It'll cost you an arm and a leg

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. - Cyril Connolly

Thursday, September 01, 2005

It'll cost you an arm and a leg

For the next 8 days, I am busy helping to host our annual Limb Deformity Conference with a pre-course which begins tomorrow on Reconstructive Surgery and Osteomyelitis. Yeah - I know - exciting stuff.

It is a big deal though. A couple of hundred orthopedic surgeons from around the world come to Baltimore for a week every fall to attend this conference, and this is my first year in my new job as Director to be involved and make sure things go smoothly. Luckily for me, we have an amazing full time event planner on my staff who has everything covered down to the smallest detail so I'm kind of like the parent of the bride. I show up, participate, have fun, schmooze, and pay all the bills.

This week there were a lot of bills related to the course crossing my desk. Printing, moving expenses, course materials, supplies, renting the National Aquarium for a night for a reception, buying a box at an O's game, etc.

As part of this course, we are offering a couple of lab courses for the surgeons to practice what they learn during the conference. Hands on experience you might say. Since we can't have surgeons from Italy, Brazil, Chile, Australia and the UK performing practice surgery on live patients, we have arranged for the use of the cadaver labs at the Univ. of MD, and have shuttle buses between the hotel and the hospital.

So the next time someone tells you that something costs "an arm and a leg"? Guess what? That's $200 for an arm and $300 for a leg (including the foot). I just bought about 3 dozen of each.

posted by Broadsheet @ 10:00 PM