If any doubt about the growth of rheumatology worldwide still lingered, the European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) congress in Copenhagen this June should have ended it. The meeting was not just big. It was gigantic and filled the sleek new Bella Center on the outskirts of the city. On the grounds of the Bella Center sits a large wind turbine which, while generating the nice green electricity, looked as if it was blowing hoards of rheumatologists through the entrance doors, jetting them into lecture halls and exhibit areas.
The crowding magnified the impression of the meeting’s size. The wide corridors were jammed with people who seemed relentlessly hungry for knowledge. Even in the caverns of the big auditoriums, the sessions were standing room only. On more than one occasion, I had to watch a lecture on a TV monitor outside a barricaded room assiduously guarded by a security officer, albeit a pleasant young woman.
Soggy City
While the record number of attendees led to crowding, the weather was also a big factor keeping people inside the convention center. For the first four days I was there, rain pelted wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen and a fierce wind blasted fusillades of water across the city. We learned later that this was the wettest week in Copenhagen history and one day saw the ninth largest rain accumulation ever recorded in Denmark. People making their way from the subways arrived at the Bella Center drenched, their umbrellas blown apart in cyclonic winds.
I do not know what Danes call this weather, but in the United States, it would be a nor’ easter, although someone said it was like Katrina. With the weather preventing sightseeing and the only attraction around the Bella Center the wind turbine (and how many times can you watch it go around?), people probably logged a record number of CME hours. While standing during a session in a hot, densely packed lecture room, I turned to a friend and suggested that the best way to clear out the place would be to run down the aisle yelling, “The sun is shining, the sun is shining!” The stampede out the door would have been downright dangerous, although I would have finally gotten a seat.