The 6th Educational Seminar for Patients with Multiple Myeloma, their Family and Friends" returned to an already known and experienced place – Spa Congress Hall “Kolonada” in Poděbrady, and the time of seminar holding, September 10-11, 2010, was accompanied as usual by beautiful Indian summer. The seminar was organized traditionally by the Czech Myeloma Group (CMG) foundation in cooperation with The International Myeloma Foundation (IMF) and the Multiple Myeloma Patient Support Group (KPMM) with the financial support kindly provided by the Celgene and Lipomed companies.
Seminar guests were accommodated in several local hotels because September is still high season, and none of the hotels are able to completely relax their capacity. This year we used the hospitality of the hotels Zimní lázně, Junior and Park. The Seminar, including the social evening, was located again in Spa Congress Hall Kolonáda.
In all, 65 patients and 42 family members or friends attended the Seminar. A growing number of participants accept to come already on Friday afternoon to enjoy the informal eve of the professional seminar. After traditional welcome drink and festive words of the chairman of the Board of Foundation Professor Roman Hajek, MD, and the acting chairman of KPMM Ing. Josef Hajek, started his formal lecture associate professor Vladimir Maisnar, MD and introduced new educational CD for the patients with multiple myeloma and their relatives. This CD was created in association with Multiple Myeloma Patient Support Group. It is very clear and comprehensible summary of diagnosis, treatment and life with multiple myeloma. Professional terms are supplemented by advice and recommendations, and acquired knowledge is possible to verify by simple quizzes, questionnaire and crosswords. We believe that this CD will find its fans, and especially, it will be the source of information for any periods of treatment. After a practical demonstration of the CD, we all went into another room, where small reception was ready, and the atmosphere was formed by a local band called “Waves of Milos Petrasek”. The social evening finished about 11pm and the last runners moved to the hotel to prepare for busy Saturday’s program.
On Saturday morning, registered last seminar participants, and the professional part of the Seminar was launched at 8:30am with the introduction of the organization team and invitation of representative of the IFM, Mr. Greg Brozeit, who expressed his pleasure to attend again our seminar. Mr. Grozeit spoke in his native language (English) and all his comments were kindly translated by Alzbeta Kotkova, MD.
Opening session was started with presentation about the Czech Myeloma Group Foundation given by the Chairman of the Board of Foundation Professor Roman Hajek, MD, and as every year a new brochure for the patient was launched. This year it is brochure called “Radiation Therapy and You”.
There was also launched another brochure, already the second in a row from the project „Psychologists“, which was again produced with generous support of Celgene Company. This brochure called „ Active coping with new situations“introduced PhDr. Ing. Ludmila Malinová, MBA. This brochure is focused on relapsed patients. After that, the Multiple Myeloma Patient Support Group representative, Ing. Josef Hájek, highlighted the main activities of the group carried out during the last year. About activities of Slovak Myeloma Society in 2010 informed associate professor Ing. Miroslav Hrianka, Ph.D. The final speech before morning coffee break engagingly presented Mr. Greg Brozeit, and his talk titled "How to be a better patient" met again with great response.
After the break all the presentations were focused on some specific topics. Miroslava Schutzova, MD talked about relapse, novel therapies and clinical trials, associate professor Jaroslav Bacovsky, MD spoke about bone disease, and Petr Pavlicek, MD about pain management. For the next 15 minutes representatives of KPMM prepared their “hot questions” for panel discussion. Differently oriented questions were answered by the all present experts.
Another part of the program was devoted to the KPMM assembly because of organizational changes. There was unanimously elected Ing. Josef Hajek as a chairman of KPMM. Family members who are not members of KPMM had opportunity to talk with psychologist and Prof. R. Hajek about problems, which they have to cope with, while someone from family is diagnosed with serious illness.
After a delicious lunch and a pleasant walk around the sunny colonnade all participants were divided into two discussion groups with different topics. One group focused on understanding exams results. For this issue prepared his presentation with concrete examples of the results Jan Straub, M.D.. Second group discussed changes in social services with social worker Lea Janků. Both groups were changed after the break, that everyone the opportunity to discuss all the topics with each expert.
All participants had the opportunity to answer quiz questions, and everyone who answered correctly all the questions were rewarded with small gifts.
The Seminar was closed at 16, 30 with words to thank to all participants and organizers. All present agreed that they look forward to the next meeting.
The Czech Myeloma Group Foundation thanks all the patients, their relatives and friends, all the discoursing attendees, other guests and the organisation IMF, Celgene and Lipomed companies for their support. We thank you for every remark, which will be a reason to improve these types of events.
The 7th Annual Educational Seminar is scheduled for September 2011 and will be located somewhere in Moravia.
11. 10. 2010
