WOW! Did you ever miss out if you did not attend the 2005 annual MATT meeting in Kansas City. The speakers were great! If you couldn’t attend this year, mark your calendars for 2006 in Peoria, IL. The combination of science and friendship resulted in a really fun two days.
We started out on Thursday with Dr. Wasserman talking about Pediatric Poisoning. Dr. Mike Feldman followed up with Cocaine comparisons in oral fluid, urine and hair. He was gracious enough to give Dr. Christine Moore’s talk because she was unable to attend unexpectedly. Christine our thoughts and prayers are with you. Before lunch we heard Dr. Feldman talk about ETG, the up and coming method for ethanol metabolite testing. Dr. Tim Rohrig talked about Ambien Pharmacology and some very interesting case studies. We ended our first day with Randy Clouette telling us all about sweat patch testing. Like all good toxicology meetings, a little wine and cheese was in order to close out the meeting. Thanks again to Roche, UCT, Thermo, Olympus and LabOne for sponsoring this part of the meeting. After a day of science and many discussions between speakers and meeting attendees, our conversations turned to different subjects such as motorcycles and terminology used by bikers. After a wonderful dinner at PF Changs, many of us retired to Jardine’s for some local Kansas City jazz and of course a few more drinks.
Friday morning we led off with Dr. Michael Lehrer discussing a great murder mystery in a case of “What really happened?” Betsy Sears followed with Carbohydrate Deficient Transferin and why insurance companies use this alcohol marker. Before lunch Dr. Uttam Garg talked in detail about Heavy Metal Toxicity and what they have been seeing at Children’s Mercy here in Kansas City. Don Frederick and Laureen Marinetti ended our meeting with great talks on clinical toxicology and Infant deaths from various cold medications. Afterwards we discovered one of the plaza’s great happy hours at McCormick and Schmick’s with appetizers for only $1.95. We then of course went to the local Irish pub for our farewell drinks.
MATT elected a new vice-president for 2005-2006. LabOne’s very own Dawn Hahn will be taking on these responsibilities. Congratulations Dawn!
Finally, MATT membership is up from last year. Currently, we have 66 active members.