touchHAEMATOLOGY coverage of data presented at EHA 2024:
Dr. Mandy Lauw, outgoing Chair of the YoungEHA Committee, discusses how YoungEHA supports young hematology professionals and offers tips on maximizing the EHA Congress for career development. Topics covered include the main aim and mission of YoungEHA, YoungEHA’s contributions to this year’s EHA Congress and throughout the year, how young professionals can get the most out of the EHA Congress and its available activities and resources, making the most of virtual attendance, the main aims of the YoungEHA committee for the coming year and Dr. Lauw’s hopes for the committee’s future.
Questions
- What is the main aim and mission of YoungEHA? (0:16)
- How has YoungEHA contributed to this year’s EHA Congress and to EHA generally throughout the year? (1:26)
- How can young professionals working in haematology get the most of the EHA Congress? What activities and resources are available to young professionals attending the EHA Congress? (3:32)
- How can young professionals make the most of virtual attendance of the EHA Congress? (5:10)
- What are the main aims of the YoungEHA committee for the coming year, and what would you like to see for young professionals at next year’s EHA Congress? (6:11)
- As outgoing chair, what are your hopes for the YoungEHA committee for the coming years? (8:24)
Disclosures: TBC
This content has been developed independently by Touch Medical Media for touchHAEMATOLOGY. It is not affiliated with the European Hematology Association (EHA). Unapproved products or unapproved uses of approved products may be discussed by the faculty; these situations may reflect the approval status in one or more jurisdictions. No endorsement of unapproved products or unapproved uses is either made or implied by mention of these products or uses by Touch Medical Media or any sponsor. Views expressed are the speaker’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Touch Medical Media.
Abbreviations: CRTH, Clinical Research Training in Hematology; TRTH, Translational Research Training in Hematology; YERM, YoungEHA Research Meeting.
Transcript
I’m Dr Mandy Lauw. I’m a haematologist from Rotterdam, the Netherlands. And, up till this congress in June, I was the chair of the YoungEHA Committee of the European Haematology Association.
What is the main aim and mission of YoungEHA? (0:16)
I’ve been the chair of YoungEHA for the past 3 years, and one of the biggest aims was to get more interest in YoungEHA, to grow the community and to get more awareness of the different career stages within EHA. One of the things that we very much fought for is the position of YoungEHA members in different committees of EHA and also to have a seat at the table at the board meetings, which has been very helpful and successful in gaining our momentum.
And what we’ve also tried to achieve is, and I think it was visible [at] this congress, is to also get the name YoungEHA a little bit more out to the big audience, as well as having more diversity in career stages for chairs, speakers and reviewers who will help to, organize the congress.
In general, YoungEHA should be the ‘go to’ community within EHA for all the early career professionals, both fundamental researchers, as well as clinicians, to find a home in EHA, to collaborate, to network, and to get engaged.
How has YoungEHA contributed to this year’s EHA Congress and to EHA generally throughout the year? (1:26)
One of the main things that we always organize for each congress is the YERM, which is the YoungEHA Research Meeting, which is a a full day of the congress or day before the congress, actually, which is, fully focused on fundamental research and translational research. We organize that every year on the Thursday, and what we’ve been able to do over the past years is that it’s fully organized by the early career professionals. So we have two, mid-to-early career chairs and one keynote speaker and then three abstracts being presented by younger colleagues who are in their PhD or just finished their PhD. And it’s a very successful meeting with lots of attendants – I think over 500 people attended this year. We get a lot of positive feedback about low key questions and that it’s very much an interactive session as well. One of the highlights of congress also focused on fundamental research.
In addition to that, we also organize two YoungEHA sessions every year, which are on the Friday and Saturday, which are two sessions that are more focused on topics ‘out of the box’. This year we covered end of life care and haematology – how to handle palliative care, how are we going about it, and also the patient perspective on that. And the other one was on sustainability: how to reduce waste both in research, with results [and] how to reduce waste in the lab – how can you be more sustainable in the lab and how to reduce waste by building a green lab, how to really be conscious of our environment, with all our disposables and other things that we use.
I think those three sessions are always the highlights for us at YoungEHA. And, of course, on Saturday evening, YoungEHA Groups, which is kind of the networking event.
How can young professionals working in haematology get the most of the EHA Congress? What activities and resources are available to young professionals attending the EHA Congress? (3:32)
What we try to do every year is to create what we call a ‘YoungEHA track’, where we identify sessions within the congress that are interesting for people who attend the congress for the first time or who are a little bit of a more early career background. Of course, the sessions that I just mentioned, the YERM and the two YoungEHA sessions are mentioned in there. But also loads of educational [sessions] we try to highlight, and, of course, the plenary sessions so that you can get a broad scope of what EHA has to offer and to get a little bit of [a] mix of educational as well as oral sessions.
I think for the early career attendees, it’s very much a bit more [for] educational rather than maybe scientific [reasons] that you attend the conference. And I think also the networking is very important. What we also have is a member’s lounge and a YoungEHA lounge where people can wind down, but also get to know each other and get to know the YoungEHA committee in the office.
Also, I always recommend people to come to the EHA groups event on Saturday evening, which is also just fun to be at there, but it’s also an easy way to get to know more people there and to just have a good time together. I think networking and, hopefully, in the course of next year, we will also have an online platform where people can connect with each other already before and also after the congress to really make the most of their congress attendance.
How can young professionals make the most of virtual attendance of the EHA Congress? (5:10)
If you attend [the congress] virtually, of course, it’s a little bit harder to get to know each other face-to-face. But what we hope to have is, in addition to the virtual or the hybrid format of the congress, an online platform for the community where people, if they are members of EHA, can connect with each other. There will also be a forum where people can share experience from the congress. And, hopefully, during the congress of next year, if you can’t come to Milan but want to attend virtually, there will also be an online platform to share ideas or to share experiences from the online attendance. So, we’re not completely sure yet how to enroll in the course of this year. Also, there will be a dedicated forum and page for the YoungEHA community. Hopefully, that will help to also give the virtual attendees a bit more ways to connect with each other.
What are the main aims of the YoungEHA committee for the coming year, and what would you like to see for young professionals at next year’s EHA Congress? (6:11)
What I hope for the coming year, and also for the years to come, is that the awareness that we’ve been able to create for the YoungEHA community keeps on growing and be sustained. I think we had over 100 people applying for the YoungEHA community this year, and that’s an amazing testament that we are trying to do the right thing. And what we are hoping to do is to spread the wealth because there’s only so many people that can become part of the committee and that can attend some of the mentoring programs; so we’re trying to make sure that we have better ways of including more people.
The biggest things for next year is that we are setting up this online platform, that we’re creating a newsletter dedicated to YoungEHA professionals, and that we’re setting up a new mentoring program, which is dedicated to career development rather than research or translational science. We are really dedicated to mentoring and how to address barriers that you are facing during your career. And, we had a mixer about that this congress, which was very successful, we had a lot of, attendees for that. And we’re hoping to roll out the actual mentoring program in the course of 2025. So keep an eye out on the website and also on the newsletter that we will be composing. If you want to know more about that and want to get involved in that mentoring program. Hopefully, for next year’s congress, we can see more and more of early career professionals being able to present their research, being involved in the organization, being a chair, or being a speaker, so that you can really see the diversification more and more over the years. And not only the alumni of CRTH and TRTH programs, but also people from less prominent countries and less prominent labs. That would be something that I will be looking forward [to] for the next coming years, to see the influence of YoungEHA on the congress and on the EHA in general.
As outgoing chair, what are your hopes for the YoungEHA committee for the coming years? (8:24)
This was a bittersweet congress for me because it was my last one as the chair of the YoungEHA committee. It has been 3 very rewarding, but also intensive, years. So I’m happy to hand over to my successor, which will be Dr Nuno Borges from the UK, and the co-chair will be Dr Alba Maiques from Spain. I’m completely confident that the committee is in the right hands with them because they’ve already been part of the committee for a couple of years, and they know very well where we want to go with the committee and with what their aims are for the next years. I wish them to remain as successful as we have been in the past years to really keep the momentum up, to really be able to represent our early career community well and to stay on top of the things that we’ve indicated before that are our spear points and to make sure that the EHA board and the EHA community are well aware of the importance of fostering the next generation in haematology because, in the end, we are the future of EHA and the haematology clinic and research. I’m really hoping that everyone is aware how important it is to foster the next generation.
Interviewer/Editor: Helen Bowden
Cite: Lauw M. Supporting young haematologists: Insights on YoungEHA and EHA 24. touchHAEMATOLOGY. July, XX, 2024.
