The benefits of interdisciplinary conferences

There are so many professional associations globally representing so many different specialities and expert individuals. One of these is a organization identified as i-Fab. This is the International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics community that is a multidisciplinary team of industry experts with an interest in foot and ankle biomechanics. They are comprised of academics, physicians, podiatry practitioners, orthopaedic specialists, engineers, physical therapists and other health professionals, footwear industry personal, insole/orthotic suppliers, surgical products manufacturers and related markets. They are a really assorted group. The organisation aims to deliver information about the global activities in connection with foot and ankle biomechanics. They link those who are employed in the foot and ankle biomechanics area irrespective of their location and discipline they may be from. Additionally they would like to facilitate discussion on major issues of interest for the worldwide community and build coordinated association wide activities. Most importantly they are endeavoring to produce a profile for an worldwide critical mass of research activities which are related to foot and ankle biomechanics.

As a result one of their main actions is an international convention that is held every 2 yrs. This convention moves worldwide and it has been held by a number of different countries. The 2018 iFab convention happened in New York in the USA. An episode of PodChatLive was devoted to a discourse on that conference. PodChatLive is a monthly live show for podiatrists and after the conference the hosts had a chat of some of the relevant and fascinating papers that were presented at the conference. This discussion was live on Facebook. It was later submitted to YouTube and made available as a podcast edition accessible form a lot of the podcast platforms. It was a unique approach taken by the hosts to analyze a meeting, since they typically have a different guest on each week to talk about a topic. It is not known if they will try and cover the 2020 conference.