Fifth Sense talk smell and taste at BACO 2015
BACO is the leading event for the UK ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) profession. The British Academic Conference in Otolaryngology attracts over 1000 delegates from all over the UK and much further afield. The event happens once every three years and this year’s conference was the first one that Fifth Sense had the opportunity to attend. Given that it is attended by so many ENT Consultants and others associated with this area of clinical practice it seemed like a very good opportunity to get our message that smell and taste matter across to an important sector of the medical profession.
We’re very pleased to say that our participation was a resounding success. Fifth Sense had prime place at the conference with a stand right at the entrance to the exhibition hall, which gave Duncan Boak and Tom Laughton the ideal location to engage with delegates, aided by a large bowl of chocolate which was on offer to anyone who was prepared to hold their nose and experience the impact of smell loss on flavour perception.
We spoke to a large number of ENT Consultants and the message we got from many of them is that they are are aware of Fifth Sense, very supportive of the work that we are doing and recognise that smell and taste disorders can have a huge impact on the quality of life of their patients. We’ve seen this awareness and understanding improve over the last couple of years, due in part to our efforts to engage with the ENT profession, for example at the 2014 BRS meeting – the nose clip activity seems to have made a lasting impression on those present!
We do of course recognise that greater understanding and support for our cause might not do much to help anyone affected by a smell and taste disorder at this moment in time, but we do need the ENT profession to be behind us. If our work can encourage more clinicians to specialise in smell and taste disorders, to carry out more research, then it can only benefit us all in future.
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We also spoke to a number of other individuals and organisations who are interested in the work we are doing and potentially working with us or supporting us. We’ll be following up on these discussions over the coming weeks.
Duncan and Tom came away feeling really pleased at how the event went, and you can get Tom’s perspective from the video above. We’re hoping to be back at BACO in 2018.
Fifth Sense would like to thank Janet Mills and the rest of the conference team for organising such a successful event and for their support of Fifth Sense.