Several months ago, Leslie asked Wendy and I to help her work at the San Diego Shoulder Institute's 30th Annual Course. Dr. Esch started the course as a meeting with a few doctors over pretzels and beer. It has grown into the leading course for shoulder specialists and doctors from 23 countries travel to take part. This year over 280 registrants attended, along with 100 faculty and hundreds of vendors. We really had no idea what to expect, but jumped at the opportunity. We have spent the last few weeks getting a little training and helping prep for the event.
We arrived Monday for our 6-day stay at the Hilton Bayfront...both our hotel for the week and the location of the course.
We couldn't believe our view from our rooms, a perfect day from the 29th floor. We could see Coronado, Cabrillo, Seaport Village...
Petco Park and the Gaslamp Quarter, all from our window!
We spent much of the afternoon meeting with Larky (a retired RN, who now coordinates the course with Dr. Esch) and prepping registration materials and learning a little bit about the events of the week.
We were officially introduced to Dr. Esch (the founder of the course and a very well respected Orthopaedic Surgeon in SD and around the world). He treated all of us to an amazing dinner at GreyStone on 5th Ave.
I had the filet with asparagus and shoestring potatoes, but also enjoyed some of Leslie's sea bass and Wendy's chicken. Not to mention, the onion rings, garlic mashed potatoes, mac and cheese and gelato for dessert. It was a fantastic meal and a wonderful night meeting Dr. Esch and getting to know our team.
Tuesday morning, we were up bright and early to tour the facility
and see our registration set up.
We were pampered by the Institute with these fabulous gift baskets
and treated like royalty by the hotel staff! We had an over the top breakfast with them as they introduced themselves and
went over all of the events for the week. Early registration got underway from 3-6pm on Tuesday and was the perfect preparation to get us ready for the Wednesday start of the course.
We finished the night with fireworks right out our room windows...what a treat!
6:45am came quickly on Wednesday morning, but we were excited to get registration complete and have the lectures and labs get underway. Our team was organized and worked hard to make registration run smoothly. We loved interacting with all of the doctors, while providing them with their course packets, signing them up for labs and workshops and answering their questions. It was a long, busy day but very successful and interesting.
Although exhausted, we were treated to another fabulous meal at Bayfront Park. It was a fiesta-themed event and everything was delicious. We had a spectacular view of the bay and Petco Park and the weather was perfect!
Our staff table!
Thursday and Friday were long days as well, with several lecture sessions, luncheon workshops and cadaver labs. We had a long list of duties, but really enjoyed every moment.
Friday, 25 of the doctors got to go to a Shoulder Throwing workshop at Petco Park and work with the Padres' doctors. We showed our Padres support and enjoyed wearing t-shirts, jeans and tennis shoes!
I even got stuck removing the "hazard" from one of the conference rooms so the hotel staff could prepare for the faculty dinner.
Friday night was the faculty dinner and we had fun dressing up! I don't get to do this very often so it was extra fun and I think we cleaned up pretty well!
Even in formal attire, we all matched!
Dr. Esch insisted on the this very cool martini luge for the cocktail hour. We each ordered a Cosmo and watched the bartender pour it from the top and into our glass!
While the many board members and colleagues of Dr. Esch "roasted" him, we dined on some delicious food.
After a refreshing salad, I devoured my filet, lobster, potato stack and vegetable medley.
I was sure to save room for this delectable array of chocolate desserts!
While we worked, the kids got a mini vacation at the hotel. They spent time at the pool,
got photo-bombed by Poppy while out to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack,
took the ferry to Coronado
and took some time to shop and enjoy the beach
while on the island.
Saturday morning was the last day of the course and we spent much of it "closing down shop", collecting evaluations and saying goodbye to the doctors. However, we couldn't believe that Jenny Flake (a local food blogger and cookbook author that Wendy and I follow from Picky Palate) was staying at our hotel. We snuck up on her in the lobby and she was sweet enough to pose for a picture with us. Of course, we were drab in our oatmeal shirts and she was adorably accessorized, but oh well. It was the perfect ending to a very long, but fantastic week. I really look forward to the opportunity again next year!!
