Exploring Atlanta and Beginning ASTMH

Yesterday we didn't have any obligations at the conference until the opening plenary session in the evening, so I decided to explore. I have been to Atlanta before, but the most recent time was in 2004, when I was at Emory doing research for the summer. That was obviously a long time ago, so I had a lot of exploring to do. I started the day by sleeping in (it was, after all, Sunday, and I had taken a pretty big exam the morning before), and then headed down to the Underground Atlanta area (less than a mile from my hotel) to take an electric car tour. It was pretty similar to the trolley tours in Savannah, only without the on-and-off that the Savannah trolleys offer (to allow you to explore on your own between stories from the tour guides). I did learn a lot about the downtown Atlanta area, though, including some of the history of the King family as we drove by the house where MLK, Jr was born and the church where he would occasionally preach. I also learned what this is. Any guesses?

It's actually a holding cell (I know, right?). Back in the day (before 1905 or so), this part of Atlanta (Inman Park) was pretty far away from the city proper, so when someone had committed a crime, they would lock him into this tiny little cell and turn on the light on the top, so the paddywagon knew to come pick him up and take him to jail. Well, Atlanta gets hot in the summer, and after enough people died in these, they decided that maybe it wasn't the best way to hold prisoners until they could be taken to jail.

After the tour, one of my classmates from last year and I explored World of Coke, because it's free with a military ID. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who has to pay. Completely not worth it. We did like this picture of a WWII Army nurse, though:

Last night was the opening plenary, by the CEO of Save the Children, Carolyn Miles, pictured below (pic from the internet):

It actually wasn't the best speech ever, but it wasn't bad. I think the problem was that she's a business-type person, speaking to an entire room of people who study tropical diseases about why children are important and why studying the diseases that kill them is important. I think we got that message already.

Today I started the day with clinical updates from the last year in malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and TB. The malaria updates were very well done and very helpful, but the other presenters of the other three diseases spent too much time going over the history of their respective diseases and not enough time talking about updates. After that session was a talk on tropical dermatology, which made me feel good about myself and my ability to recognize pictures of rashes. Of course, it's the same 100 pictures used for the same diseases, so whether I'm just recognizing the pictures or if I understand the rashes or not is another issue entirely. Here's one of the pictures I saw a lot of in my tropical medicine studying:

This is chromoblastomycosis, and if I didn't know better, I'd swear it was the only picture of this disease, for how often it's used. Anyway, after tropical derm was lunch/clinical cases, which was about echinococcus and given by a completely uninteresting speaker, so my friend and I left early for our midday break, which I spent going on a short run (3ish miles). Then we returned for more clinical updates from the CDC, and then it was time to break for the evening for drinks and pizza. I forget the name of the restaurant, but it was delicious. And I got to do a lot of networking, which is always helpful.

Tomorrow will be more of the same (as far as the lectures, not the exploring of Atlanta). Hopefully I learn something applicable to my new job.