Welcome back to the Alliance 2025 Annual Conference! After a full day of educational sessions, Thursday night wrapped with a ‘70s-themed party to kick off the countdown to the Alliance’s 50th anniversary. The DJ was spinning music from the decade, and the dance floor was full of costume contest competitors and groovy dancers alike.

The learning and networking continued on Friday. Read on for a recap:

Art History for Continuing Education in the Health Professions

To start the day, Siobhan Conaty, PhD, enlightened attendees about how art history can enhance skills applicable to health professions. Dr. Conaty shared that healthcare professionals should study art history because healthcare systems are struggling to reduce disparities, improve quality and control costs while remaining “patient-centered”. What are Dr. Conaty’s key takeaways for healthcare CPD professionals?

• Understanding art history can improve observation and diagnosis skills, helping providers learn to read and interpret images, patterns, shapes, and providing deeper social and cultural awareness in patient histories.
• Studying art as a proxy, a neutral (and interesting) setting to safely practice process and gain transferable skills, as well as deeper social and cultural awareness in patient histories.
• Looking at art is good for you! Art is a powerful, engaging and moving experience that can increase empathy and make you think, feel and see things differently.

Live From Orlando

#Alliance25 attendees are weighing in on the value of education and scholarly research, excitement about attending the conference and more. Check out what they had to say:

• This year’s poster session had many great posters. We received a wide variety of great submissions on research and key areas in the medical education space, including DEI, unique deliverable formats, CPD, burnout, segmentation data analysis, and it has really elevated the quality of our poster sessions at the Alliance meeting. And we’ve expanded our number of sessions that we’ve received over the last few years … it’s encouraging to see how many people have taken the time out even just to walk by the poster session, seeing how engaging they were in their thoughtful and relevant discussions and sharing insights. And so this year, we decided to take it to the next level and place the judging in the hands of Alliance members and conference attendees. It’s a great opportunity not only to be recognized by peers for the hard work presenters put into the research and data analysis, but also to be able to network and share ideas and practices that may be relevant to bring back to their own organizations and expand perspectives and inspire possibilities. —Dr. Dipti Desai, Posters Session Chair
• I love how our community shows up to share with each other in such a variety of ways. We have those of us who are working in a research capacity, those of us who are working in design. And we are so willing to share and to learn from each other in whatever level we’re at, whatever capacity we have, and it’s a very generous community, and it makes us all better. —Ailene Cantelmi, Alliance 2025 Program Planning Committee Chair
• We think that the PDC (Professional Development Committee) really is the essence of what we do. It’s education. And we want to make sure that it is current and relevant. That will be our work for the next year, to make sure that what we are providing to our learners is a valuable member service. —Gayla Bruner, Alliance Professional Development Committee Chair

Are you a first-time attendee or plan to be at a future Alliance conference? We caught up with two first-timers, who shared that the meeting exceeded their expectations. One even recommended a potential future opportunity for first-time attendees to meet each other on the first day, perhaps during the opening reception, as networking is a key priority. Also, they enjoyed the exposure to future volunteer opportunities. Hear more from Alliance award winner Lisa Brock, LCSW:

I really had a wonderful day. The morning keynote session was very thought-provoking to me. I was interested in how many sessions are on AI and really appreciated Dr. Sheppard’s perspectives and the way of incorporating health disparities and thinking about both the opportunity and structural challenges that exist in it right now. That was a meaningful way to start the day. And I had an opportunity to talk to her, which was great. I’ve really been struck as a first-time attendee at how warm and welcoming everyone has been … I’ve met a lot of people, and there’s been a really nice sense of shared openness, collaboration and curiosity about learning each other’s work. I enjoyed a number of other sessions, one on evaluation and DEI. Also, I appreciated the glam headshot set up. So that’s a nice treat and perk!

What’s Next?

The week isn’t over yet. Join us on Saturday, Jan. 11, for the final day of #Alliance25. Don’t miss the final keynote, “CHANGE: How to Make Big Things Happen”, from Damon Centola, PhD. Concurrent sessions run from 9:30 a.m.–11:45 a.m. Then, wrap up the conference with an interactive, team-based session, “We Are Family (Feud): An Alliance 2025 Recap Challenge”. We’ll see you there!

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Almanac Editorial Board and Alliance Podcast Task Force members for contributing to these daily recaps as conference reporters.

Looking for more? Check out the #Alliance25 Day 1 recap here, and catch up with the last day of the conference here.