PCMA is offering a free issues forum on international travel issues for meeting attendees and exhibitors on February 23. Called, “Visas, Customs, and Customer Service: Making Life Easier for International Meeting Attendees and Exhibitors,” the forum will be “broadcast live from the WTTW public television studios in Chicago, and will be viewed by a live studio audience, which will have an opportunity to pose questions to the panelists. PMCA also plans to offer the Issues Forum as a live teleconference, and a streaming video of the program will be posted on the PCMA Web site the day after the session.”

For more information and to register, click here or contact Glen C. Ramsborg, PhD, Senior Director of Education for PCMA, at 312-423-7262 or gramsborg@pcma.org.

Speaking of international issues, here at the Alliance for Continuing Medical Education, a meeting I’m attending in San Francisco right now, I had an interesting conversation yesterday with some CME providers who have a large international component to their U.S.-based programs. In addition to the usual visa and letters of invitation hassles, one planner said her presenters were getting stopped at customs for the big tubes they carry their posters in. She found a site online (I’ll try to find out where) where they can upload their posters and have them printed out on site. The idea drew some serious oohs and aahs from the rest of the group. If anyone knows what site she was talking about, please let me know so I can share it with the rest of you guys. Sounded like a great idea to me.

While I’m feeling cranky, I might as well crank on. Why do hotels always put the towels on the wall farthest from the shower? I hate putting the towels on the toilet, but I hate even more slip-sliding across the room to grab one. And no in-room coffee pot? Aack! I almost croaked when I saw that missing last night (I am NOT a mornning person). And no minibar–I was starved, since I sat in the back of the plane last night and all they had left was meatloaf (I’m a semi-vegetarian) by the time they got to us in the hinterlands. At least the windows open and the bed is double-sheeted, two things I really like in a hotel room.

Then there was the front desk guy last night, who was nice enough. But when the woman in front of me said, “This is a smoking room, right? That’s what I reserved,” and he replied, “No, of course not. You shouldn’t smoke anyway, it’s bad for you.” Yeah right, like she’s going to quit an addiction because the hotel couldn’t honor its commitment to give her the type of room she reserved. If she had been a nonsmoker in a smoking room, do ya think he would have told her, “well, you might as well start, then?” I think not. Then he proceeded to tell her to call in the morning and ask again, since “no one’s going to actually pay attention to your request unless you make a pain of yourself.” Whether you relate to her plight or not, this is not what I’d call great customer service. I hope it gets better, or that I get less cranky, as time goes on…