Why I don't attend GNN

The title is deliberately provocative, first of all I should point out that Kate Matthay and Scott Howard have created a wonderful resource in the Global Neuroblastoma Network. As the Chair of the Neuroblastoma Committee of InPOG I can and should learn a lot from attending the meetings, but what I lack is time. In 2020 my Hospital in Varanasi India registered 475 new children with cancer. Even excluding patients who abandoned treatment (13%) or died from disease/infection (13%), this still left over 300 children from last year alone receiving active treatment. I am extremely fortunate to have an experienced team of two residents from Tata, along with two more hired locally, and a team of well trained nurses backed by the resources of Tata Memorial, but when I am exhausted at the end of the day I just don't want to attend another webinar! So while working with POINTE and providing resources is a valid goal of this group, maybe our primary goal should be ensuring that local champions can have the time to develop themselves and their programs. 😊