Professor Astrid van Wieringen, Experimental Otorinolaryngology, Dept Neurosciences, KU Leuven, Chair of International Policy Council KU Leuven
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the inaugural ManCAD CAPers (Manchester Centre for Audiology and Deafness Clinical Auditory Papers) conference held in Manchester. The conference was held at the Whitworth Art Gallery and HOME Manchester – a local not-for-profit arts centre. I very much appreciated this change of scenery from typical conference locations.
The conference was officially billed as a way to honour Professor Dave Moore who will be retiring this year, but it turned out to be so much more. The organisers arranged for some of Dave’s long time collaborators (myself being one) to present on work they had completed with him, or that had been inspired by him. In addition, there were submitted clinical research papers and a poster session that allowed for networking and discussion. The conference had broad appeal as reflected in the fact that it was attended by audiologists as well as researchers and students. According to the organisers, there were attendees from 15 UK NHS trusts, 30 universities and 17 countries.
We heard about topics as diverse as hearing aid stigma, computational approaches to screening and audiogram estimation, creation of novel stimuli for paediatric testing, the influence of immune history on cochlear implant outcomes in children, and innovative advancements in accessible hearing care. An added bonus was a session on mentoring, in which we heard from three of Dave Moore’s mentees who told stories illustrating what a good mentor should look like.
For my own part, I particularly enjoyed the presentations by Lisa Hunter and Dave Moore in which I learned what ferrets can teach us about children and the many discussions on state-of-art research applicable in the clinic.
A huge thank you to Gaby Saunders (pictured above), Kevin Munro and their team for this excellent ‘translational’ conference. The organisers say they plan to hold further ManCAD CAPers conferences in the future. I hope to be able to attend these as well.
Professor Dave Moore
