2024 COA Community Oncology Conference Preview With Dr Emily Touloukian

The 2024 Community Oncology Conference, from the Community Oncology Alliance (COA), will take place April 3-5, in Orlando, Florida. Emily Touloukian, DO, medical oncologist, practice president, and managing partner at Coastal Cancer Center in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, is 1 of this year's 6 meeting cochairs.

In this preview of the upcoming meeting, we discuss the power of advocacy and how the meeting is an invaluable resource for networking and learning from your peers in oncology.

Transcript

Why is the annual Community Oncology Conference is so important?

The volumes of knowledge housed in the minds of the COA membership is absolutely astounding, and getting to connect and network with other cancer care leaders from across the country, in my mind, is really one of the most important parts of the Community Oncology Conference. The agenda itself is packed with great topics, those that are integral to the day-to-day operations of the community oncology practice, as well as those covering new and innovative treatments and the unique ways they can be implemented in community oncology settings.

What excites you most about this year's meeting, as an attendee and a cochair?

For me, the number one thing that I enjoy at the Community Oncology [Conference] is networking with my colleagues: learning what is new and exciting in their practice, how they've implemented those things, and how they've handled challenges that have popped up. We really have a fantastic agenda, covering lots of great topics. I'm particularly looking forward to the AI [artificial intelligence] session and learning for what particular services it's being leveraged in practices, and how to implement those in my own practice. I think AI is coming into all of our lives, and seeing how we can utilize that to service different platforms to improve the patient experience is really exciting.

As moderator of the day 1 discussion, “Stronger Together: The Power of Advocacy to Support Patients & Practices,” can you tell us what this panel will address?

Absolutely. You know, advocacy is really the cornerstone of COA, and the aim of our panel is to demystify advocacy, discuss the many different forms it can take and how to really be an effective advocate. We have a fantastic group of panelists with really diverse backgrounds, and my hope is that everyone in attendance will walk away from the session with an idea of either how they can start to be an advocate or improve or add to their current advocacy efforts.