The meeting started with a training day on the Wednesday; in the morning a small local computer company director showed how to build a computer - real hands on stuff. He actually built John Morris' machine for him, and then proceeded for the rest of the meeting to entertain us with film clips etc. to uproarious laughter (though why the ladies weren't encouraged to watch, I can't think!). This was followed by Ed Hammond discussing PsiWin - moving and converting files between Psions and Pcs. In the afternoon, we had talks on Reference Manager and how to construct SQL queries in Access. Altogether a most successful day.
In the evening, representatives from the Association of Anaesthetists, the BMA and several other bodies met over a working supper to discuss the Relative Values project. It was fascinating watching the interplay between some of the medical establishment, young turks from SCATA, and the quiet background stance taken by the provident companies.
The meeting started in proper with Pradeep giving a most accomplished talk, with much ad-libbing and good humour ('Honey' obviously plays an important part in his life!), about Windows '95. If you're thinking about converting, you need substantial investment in '95 software to reap the full benefits, but then you are clearly a step onward. Within a short while however, there will be other developments released which should make the need for conversion more compelling. Dan Pettus then described the trials and tribulations of bringing a product to the market-place; it's not a game for the faint hearted.
Ed Hammond has with Andrew McIndoe produced an excellent package running on Filemaker Pro for integrating data from Psion Logbooks. It is SCATA policy to develop through its working partyan identical (in look and feel) complementary package in Access, and to release both in the Autumn.
The sessions before and after lunch were devoted to free papers, of which we had ten presented. The judging for the Registrar's prize was carried out by Roger Tackley, John Bushman and Chris Barham, and the prize was awarded to Dr. R. Baylis for his paper on measuring limb movement using mercury tilt switches - a valuable tool for the pain clinic (and maybe some people's anaesthetics!). Second prize went yet again to the Hammond/McIndoe team for a really neat graphics package for the Psion, which, true to form, John Hawkins had incorporated into the logbook by lunchtime next day. So now the logbook has a graphical output as well as tables. Congratulations to all the free paper presenters on a first class show.
Marc Bloom (Pittsburgh) talked about his way of interpreting the EEG. It has bothered me for years that when you take a power spectrum, you throw away half the information - you look at the sine spectrum and discard the cosine (discarding phase information). Can it really be sense to throw away half your information? Of course not. So take the whole signal, and analyse it to discard phase-locked harmonics (signals created by interplay of the true generators, with constant phase) and you have the bispectrum, containing both frequency and phase-coupling information.
To get a measure of depth of anaesthesia, workers have taken thousands of samples of EEG from patients at fixed anaesthetic depths. These samples have then been analysed to derive the coordinates of their discriminant functions - the equations which separate one anaesthetic state from another. The value of the evaluated discriminant function the bispectral index - a measure of depth of anaesthesia.
The bispectral index is therefore a measure obtained from many observations of patients at fixed depths, distilled into a single number. Marc showed how this provided a substantially better measure of depth of anaesthesia than spectral edge or median power frequency.
Gavin Kenny reminded us briefly of his auditory evoked response work, and how this measures the level of arousal - the ability of the brain to respond to a fixed stimulus. This is therefore fundamentally different to Marc's Bispectral Index (BIS). If you want to know how how awake something is, you can either watch its natural activity (BIS) or poke it (AER). Maybe the two should be combined - we certainly watch this space with interest!
The dinner was as usual a first class social affair, and I am delighted to say that the very hard work put by the organisers into choosing the wines paid off (Richard Dunnill is quite sure he never went home afterward, though his wife has a different opinion on the matter). The Past President presented the Chairman with a gavel to keep order, and a good time was had by all. The Kenny Ensemble entertained us post prandially with some jazz, thereby we hope starting a tradition.
The Friday morning was taken up with working party meetings, and I shall leave it to their respective chairmen to report.
Although we all know it has been a tough year for industry, we are most grateful to our exhibitors for their support. Without it a large part of the infrastructure of the society would disappear, and fostering this relationship is vital. So thankyou to all who came - your presence is much appreciated.
Alastair Lack