A fabulous medical event is more than a top-notch venue, cutting-edge sessions and popular presenters. What attendees really remember is the unexpected. Here are a few off-site venues that your attendees will still be talking about next year. And the year after.
Boston
Massachusetts General Hospital has been a center of medical innovation for two centuries. Some of the most dramatic advances, starting with the Morton Ether Inhaler, named for the inventor of ether anesthesia, are on display at the Paul S. Russell, MD Museum of Medical History and Innovation. The ground floor houses permanent exhibits highlighting the evolution of medicine and clinical practice; the second floor offers temporary exhibits and function space.
Chicago
America’s biggest convention city is also America’s biggest off-site venue city. No other city has event space in America’s first planetarium (Adler Planetarium), with the most complete T-Rex in existence (Sue, at the Field Museum), beneath the world’s largest Tiffany glass dome (Chicago Cultural Center), atop the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere (Willis Tower), or looking over the fireworks blasting skyward from Navy Pier every Wednesday and Saturday from May through August (John Hancock Observatory).
New Orleans
New Orleans is home to the first pharmacy in the U.S., operated by America’s first licensed pharmacist. Louis J. Dufilho Jr’s 1804 pharmacy is now the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, filled with charms, potions, patent medicines and more than a few compounds that are still used in medical practice. The two-story museum and its historic courtyard, carriageway and loggia are available for events.
San Diego
There have been more than three-dozen World’s Fairs held in the U.S. in the past century, but most have left little but memories. The exception is Balboa Park, home to the 1915 Panama-California Exposition. The iconic California Tower reopens this year for the first time in 80 years, and nearly all of Balboa Park’s buildings and public spaces are available for events.
