Despite the global improvement in telecommunications, the size and number of international medical conferences continue to grow. Demand for such meetings is fuelled by the often exotic locations, which have been made more accessible by the increasing ease of intercontinental travel. As conferences grow, delegates' fees and subsidies from the pharmaceutical industry ensure that they are now rather profitable and more about business than about education or research.

Large medical meetings traditionally allow “experts” to lecture large audiences from high podiums. For some reason, probably a hangover from the over-reaching 1980s, it is rather unfashionable to attend a conference merely to learn something. So in an attempt to involve as many people as …