At the AUA meeting in San Francisco on day one, it was a day of coincidences. We arrived at 10:00 and took our places as "booth-guests" for the New Prostate cancer InfoLink at the Bostwick Labs booth. Spent an hour talking with Mike Scott and David Bostwick. I have known Mike for a couple years, but meeting Bostwick was truley a pleasure. Nice man.
When I toured a couple nearby booths and one of the first was the da Vinci system booth. The rep talked to me about the system when I told him I was more familliar with the robotic side than the console side. He asked where I was treated at, I told him City of Hope. He told me they had one of the very best daVinci guys there and that he was sitting at the table behind me. It was my surgeon, Tim Wilson. Coincidence #1. Dr. Wilson had a great conversation and I asked him to come to speak at our UsTOO meetings in Vegas. He said his daughter just moved there, and he would delighted. #2.
I also met Al Barqawi, David Crawford, Oppenheimer, and a couple HIFU guys, Scionti and Ron Wheeler. Wheeler clearly stated he was the best urologist/HIFU man around...hmmm, I'll elaborate later. Barqawa and Crawford were nice guys...
I met another interesting man working for Bostwick. I'll call him Brent. He was 31 when he was diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer. He was 33 now. Well, that's the youngest I have met!
The rest of the day Ruth and I manned the Infolink booth and i went around delivering my UsTOO business cards requesting guest speakers. And it worked too. I think I have filled the remaining schedule for 2010!
Ah but what would it be without at least one more coincidence. Ruth and I went to a nice SFO dinner house to get dinner and watch a little basketball. We left at half time and stopped and picked up a bottle of vino and went back to the hotel. While I was standing at the elevator on of the administrators from my church, one of the group leaders of the study I teach was standing right there. She was staying in the same hotel at the same time in San Fransisco that we were! It was worth quite the laugh and conversation.
Day two tomorrow!
Peace!
Tony