2024 Update Course - Welcoming Statement - Todd Ponsky

Need because as Mac always says I do everything selfishly so that I get smarter. I said we need a review course because I feel like I can't keep up with like the stuff I actually need to know. There's a lot of publications, so I said to Witt, let's do a review course and Whitt said let's call it an update course. So that's where the name came from, but we made ground, we made rules that we have stuck to now for 11 years. Rule number 1. It had to be free to the world. That's what we've stuck to now. I said to Witt, how are we gonna ever pay for that? He said, we'll figure it out. And over the last 11 years, we've had mostly the same sponsors that have put this together for 11 years. And I'm gonna, I'll just say them now. Cincinnati Children's, Akron Children's, uh, Intermountain Health, Laurie Children's, Seattle Children's, O'Shea. Is it O'Shea or OShy? OSH, Cleveland Clinic, new this year, and Kansas City Mercy. Um, the original founders have been supporting this for 11 years to make this free to the world, so I'm so thankful for you guys to do that. Um, also, Storts and Medtronic are also helping us this year so that we can put this on for free. That was number 1, free to the world. Number 2, we had to do it in a way that democratized it no matter where you lived. So that's why we've been doing it remote. People don't have to fly here. We make it broadcasted so that no matter where you are, you can watch it and even after the event, you can watch it after. That was rule number 2. And rule number 3 was designed by my self-diagnosed ADD. I cannot sit and pay attention to long basic science talk, so you, you, what this was designed for is. No long drawn out talks about different molecules that I don't understand. This is practice changing what is new that you need to know to change in your practice now. That was the core essence of what this has been. Also, it's not so much lectures as fights, debates and arguments about how people should be practicing. This is the design of the event, so we ask everyone online, in person. If you disagree, make your voice heard. That's the purpose of this. We want to get voices together. Um, This year we're doing something to clarify because Cecilia, the, the 12th, OK, 12th annual update course. All right, this year we're doing something different because it was confusing people last time. So some of the things you're going to hear today. I would say you should be doing this. This is like if you're not doing this, you better think about it, change your practice. 2, this is something you may really wanna think about doing, but it's not wrong if you stick with the old way. Or 3, this is cutting edge only early adopters so we have labeled the talks green circle is an easy, no risk this is what you should be doing. Blue square is if you're, it's probably safe to do, but it's OK if you don't. Black Diamond, only the brave, only the brave can do this, OK? So some of you will see we've labeled you as green, blue, or, or, uh, diamond. All right. That's anything else. So I promise everyone, every year there will be technical issues. We've never in 12 years had an event that has been purely without technical difficulties. One year, the entire power grid went out in the city and we all got in 10 cars and drove to my, my house, and we did it in my living room. So we will always pivot, we'll always make it work. Um, and if, and if the worst case scenario, we will have everything recorded and you can watch it after. Um, what else do I need to say? If, if things start freezing up on your computer, we usually say restart your browser, but lately we have not had a problem with that. Anything else? I think that's pretty much it. Please, um, for the audience, like write your questions in the in the chat if we don't get to answer it live, um, all the doctors have here the chat, so they will try to answer it, uh, there so feel free to ask as many questions as you want. Yes, and we're gonna try to do better this year on getting all the virtual questions I did bad last year. Um, I, I also wanna thank the people that actually did the work here. So Cecilia, M, Kiki, Ayla, uh, who else did I forget here? Uh, Carolyn, uh, we have, and Julie, Claudia, they put all this event together, uh, and, uh, James and your team, Red Bicycle, thank you.