JAKARTA, Indonesia-More than 350 delegates representing more than 20 nations poured in from the Pacific theater to attend the Asia Pacific Military Medicine Conference XX Sunday in Indonesia's capital city.
"We have a powerful and well put together program this year that the international delegates will definitely benefit from and be able to take tangible results back home," said Col. Joseph Pina, Deputy Surgeon for U.S. Army Pacific at Fort Shafter, Hawaii.
Hosted at the Shangri La hotel in the heart of Indonesia's largest city with more than eight million residents, the medical conference welcomed attendees from all sides of the Pacific including Australia, India, Philippines, Malaysia, Japan, Bangladesh and New Zealand, to name a few.
After hours of administrative in-processing and administrative tasks, delegates and co-hosts held an informal reception sparking initial discussions for the week-long premier medical symposium.
"The location is incredible and so far I have met my internal medicine counterparts from several countries, so the coming week is really going to be dynamic in terms of bi-lateral engagements in the medical arena," Pina said.
The secretariat section is responsible for the administrative and logistical responsibilities for the conference and is comprised of nearly a dozen members from across the Pacific services, including support personnel from U.S. forces stationed in Korea.
"The long and difficult preparation has paid off," said Lt. Col. Amy Brinson, APMMC XX conference coordinator. Brinson added that her counterparts from Indonesia were instrumental in laying the foundation to this year's conference.
APMMC is an annual conference among Asian countries and is the leading medical conference for practitioners, doctors, nurses and health care professionals. APMMC is always co-hosted by the U.S. Army in the Pacific and the host nation.
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