I greatly enjoy traveling and I really enjoy learning, so traveling to an exotic locale and attending an academic conference is a great fit for me. Earlier this month, myself and several colleagues traveled to the Czech Republic to attend and present at the World Psychiatric Association’s 2012 conference. The conference was held in Prague, and I had heard great things about the city. I prepared for the trip by getting my talks prepared and watching approximately five YouTube videos on Prague (thanks, Rick Steves!). Although attending the conference took up the majority of my (too short) trip, we did find some time to do a bit of sightseeing. So, I thought I’d share some fun science stuff we did, as well as some of the tourist stuff.
I had three presentations across the four days of the conference. Two of those were poster presentations (if you’re not in academia this sounds a bit odd – “Why are all these scientists doing what I did during 6th grade?” – but it’s a great way to interact with other researchers and get feedback on your study) and one was a symposium. All went really well, but I received really great feedback on two of the projects in particular. First was my poster presentation on measuring physiological reactions to different stimuli in those with and without social anxiety. The study itself is pretty novel, but my stimuli are different kinds of humorous videos, which sort of puts it over the top. Not a single other presenter at the conference referenced Curb Your Enthusiasm, Jackass 2, and Chris Farley in their study! I got lots “Wait, you’re doing what?” type questions, which is always fun (especially when English is not someone’s first language).
I also presented a talk (embedded below for your viewing pleasure) based on data we published earlier this year in one of the top impact-factor journals in the field of child psychiatry. It was on rage attacks in children with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and I may (okay, am) biased, but I think it was pretty cool stuff.
(Incidentally, the video was captured and completely edited on the iPad my university gave me on the plane ride from London to Dallas, using iMovie and Keynote. Pretty amazing what you can do on those things nowadays.)
The rest of the conference was heavily psychiatry-based, which meant lots of talks on drugs and biological treatments (I’m a clinical psychologist, which means I focus on non-medical treatments for problems). I’ll admit that I have a large number of reservations about the too cozy nature of psychiatry and Big Pharma, but there were certainly some interesting studies being done to help alleviate the burden mental disorders.
Like I said, we did get a little bit of sightseeing in. Most of it was wandering around Prague itself, but we did take a quick train ride out to the Sedlec Ossuary, which was INSANE. There were the bones of an estimated 30-40,000 people decorating the inside of this building. There were so many that it went beyond “creepy” to “ludicrous.”
Our hotel was actually right on the Old Town Square, which meant that I was about two minutes walk from the Prague Orloj, or Astronomical Clock. Originally built in the 1400s, it celebrated it’s 600th year of existence a couple of years ago and is a very impressive piece of work.
Finally, as a huge fan of stories of the supernatural, mythology, and folklore, I got a special treat by getting to visit the Synagogue of Prague, which is the site of most famous story of the Golem. Supposedly, a powerful rabbi created this creature from clay and brought it to life to protect the Jews from attacks but, like all good monsters, it turned on it’s creators and had to be destroyed. Now, it’s memorialized in delicious places to eat and lovely trinkets sold to tourists (and yes, I did pick up a Golem candle holder – you want to make something of it?).
Overall, it was a really good trip, both from a scientific and a cultural perspective. Take one piece of advice from me though: absinthe is terrible and should never be consumed. You’ve been warned!
