A great opportunity to submit your work for presentation at a major national conference was just extended by one week! You now have until January 14th, 2024 to submit your “Research in Action” to the AAPA 2024 Conference in May 2024 in Houston, TX.
If you are a Physician Associate/Assistant (PA), or work with them in any capacity, the AAPA 2024 Conference is an excellent place to submit research and a variety of other forms of scholarly work. The good news: your submission only needs to include an abstract, meaning you still have plenty of time to get a proposal together in the next week.
I have mentioned submitting to this conference before–and for good reason. Unlike many research-heavy conferences, AAPA 2024 is also interested in clincal projects (such as case reports and case series), education-related research, and quality improvement (QI) projects, in additional to the typical primary clinical and workforce research. You can also submit lecture-style research presentations or digital posters. This variety of submission types and formats makes the conference especially enticing for those newer to the publication and presentation game.
Check out the full breakdown of details in this great PDF provided by the AAPA.
Conferences are an excellent way to boost your career and increase your publications; I wrote an entire article outlining the benefits here.
I have had the privilege of both presenting research at this conference AND evaluating research submissions to it. So, here are some tips on submitting your abstract to this conference (or any conference).
Tips for Submitting Your AAPA Conference Abstract
1. Aim for clarity.
It can be difficult to distill your entire project into a 300-word abstract. Often, we try to cram as many details into the space as possible. In the process, we lose our organization, scatter our focus, and, most of all, confuse our readers. Above all else, make sure those evaluating your proposal understand it. (Some conference evaluation forms have an entire grading category for clarity. In fact, you’ll find this exact wording in the AAPA submission guidelines.) Focus on communicating: (a) the purpose, (b) the single most important result or conclusion, and (c) the importance of the work. All of the other details can wait.
2. Test drive your ideas.
Conference submissions are great places to debut a new idea or submit a work-in-progress. Unlike the polished product of a journal manuscript submission, conference proposals can feature an early-stage project or the initial pilot data of a larger study. The AAPA submission guidelines even recommend submitting work-in-progress to the conference, assuming it has some merit in its current form. Because conference submissions are a small investment (the proposal form can probably be completed in under an hour), there is little risk in submitting multiple ideas and seeing what gets accepted. You will still have months to complete the final product (ePosters aren’t due until April 14th).
3. Dust off your case report.
Authors often mistake case reports for a quick and easy project. However, good case reports require a lot of preparation and many important steps, all of which I outline in this article. But submission of a case report abstract to a conference is much easier. Use this opportunity to get some quick feedback on that case report idea you have been saving. Abstracts at the AAPA conference are typically published in JAAPA later in the year, making this a nice (ethical) double dip for your CV.
When you are ready to submit your work, you can do so through this submission portal.
I wish you the best of luck in submitting your work to this conference and hope to see you all in Houston!
If you need help coming up with an idea for any article or presentation, check out my free guide below:
