The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners

 The spontaneous gathering was organised by Dr Janine Bycroft. Jim Vause presented a session on challenges for GPs in using decision support tools and clinical pathways. Three trainee interns, led by Kylie Edwards from East Tamaki Healthcare, presented on the learning environment in general practice. They concentrated in particular on aspects of their practice that made it a good learning environment. A third presentation, from Helen Francis, focused on the family violence screening tool used in their Hastings practice. The presentations evoked lively and critical discussions based on the delegates' own clinical experiences."The spirit of the sessions certainly wasn't dampened by the fact that we'd all been awake since 4.35am" said conference delegate Dr Sue Hancock.

There were nearly 600 delegates at this year's conference, which was gearing up to be one of the College's most successful to date. Chief Executive, Karen Thomas, said it was very disappointing to have the conference disrupted this way, but delegates made the best of it. "Everyone was cheerful despite the rude shock of being shaken awake so early. I'm very grateful to College staff who rallied around to help out and get things back on track as much as was possible. At least everyone was safe, which was our first priority, and we can think now about what we do in the coming days".

Karen said arrangements were in hand to have several of the keynote addresses filmed on Sunday morning so they can be posted on the website for delegates who, unfortunately, couldn't get to see the real thing live. "We're definitely a bit shaken but not so stirred up that we can't plan to salvage something from this weekend".