Christie Schumacher, Program Chair for ADCES26, highlights what the conference has to offer as a dynamic, must-attend event that blends high-quality education, innovation, and meaningful connection for diabetes care professionals. With energizing keynote speakers, diverse sessions for all experience levels, and hot topics like AI in healthcare, automated insulin delivery, and emerging therapies, the conference is designed to keep attendees at the forefront of practice. Beyond the sessions, the thoughtfully structured schedule allows time for exploring cutting-edge technology in the exhibit hall, engaging with peer research, and building professional relationships—making it both an enriching and inspiring experience. Join us in Columbus, August 7th - 10th, for a can't-miss experience!
Amy Hess Fischl
ADCES26. Expertise in Action. Join us in Columbus this year, August 7th through the 10th, for a conference filled with opportunity for education, connection, and deeper meaning behind the science of diabetes care and education. I'm Amy Hess Fischl. Welcome, friends, to Diabetes Care Conversations. Today, we're joined by Christie Schumacher, PharmD, CDCES, with a million awesome credentials as well that I'm not gonna say. She is this year's conference program chair. Christie, welcome to Diabetes Care Conversations.
Christie Shumacher
Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the annual conference this year and everything that's going to be available for all of our session attendees.
Amy
Well I'm excited to ask you, the chair, all these wonderful questions. But I mean first, what would you say are kind of your main takeaways from the conference each year. And why do you come back for more?
Christie
Honestly, I love the energy of this conference. I feel like everyone that attends is so eager to learn. They're so excited about all the sessions. There's a million things going on. You really can't be disappointed when you go to the ADCES conference. There's so much to learn. There's so many great people. And I just love all the different experiences and hands-on learning opportunities that are available.
Amy
That is so awesome. I agree that, you again, seeing people, it's like seeing old friends and making new ones. And on top of it, learning all of this new information and keeping us at the top of our scope when it comes to diabetes care and education. So what are some of your favorite components of the conference?
Christie
I mean, of course, the educational sessions, right? We spent a lot of time this year making sure we took in member feedback, developing education sessions, really creating a variety of education sessions regardless on the level where you're at for diabetes management, as well as just the different disciplines. So regardless of your discipline, where you're at in your career, how much knowledge you're looking to gain, there's high level topics, there's beginner level topics. Really we offer so many different educational programs. I'm really excited to see a lot of these and see how excited our members are and even conference attendees about just going to all the different sessions.
Amy
And what do you do outside of the sessions?
Christie
Well, there's the exhibit hall, which is great. I feel like ADCES has the best exhibit hall in general. There's so much new technology and diabetes management, as well as so many different things we can offer people with diabetes, such as, you know, overlay patches, for example, for CGM systems. I find that I love walking around the exhibit hall and just learning about all these unique different companies, as well as some of the big tech companies that we're used to. So learning about updates with new products and diabetes tech and just other different initiatives and small companies even that people have put together to really enhance the experience for people with diabetes.
Amy
Do you notice that the ADCS26, again, the annual conference itself, does it function a little differently than some other conferences when it comes to time in the exhibit hall, time with posters versus the actual sessions that are the meat of the whole program?
Christie
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I think about ADCES, I love the style of it, the layout. So you start every morning with a keynote presentation, get reinvigorated for each day. So it's just a high level overview from ADCS team members. And then we have our keynote speaker, get us energized for the day. We've got educational sessions. And then there's a lot of time to just go to the exhibit hall, some time for some self-learning. And you can go there. There's also poster sessions. So you can learn about what your colleagues are doing. I would definitely recommend going to poster sessions. Support your colleagues, their research, learn about what they're doing at their practice. I think a lot of times we don't know what we don't know. So I love walking around the posters. People are so proud of their research. They spent so much time on it and they'd love to tell you about it. So take some time, check out the poster halls, support your colleagues, learn about the great things they're doing around the country. And maybe you could even implement some of those into your practice. So gaining new ideas just from talking with colleagues, networking, different things. So I love that we have the breaks for the exhibit hall, the poster sessions, research, and then we have more educational sessions. So I feel like it's really laid out nicely. And in the evenings, you can either decide, do I want to go to a different event? Do I want to go to one of the ADCES organized events? Do I even just want to hang out with my new friends that I made and check out Columbus? So there's so many different things you can do. I love the amount of free time, the energy, and just the opportunity. There's always something going on. You're never going to be bored.
Amy
No, definitely. And I think that is the beautiful part because other conferences is always like, my gosh, I need to get to the exhibit hall and I'm not going to have time because there's these nine different sessions that I need to go to. So I agree that when we think of that layout, that really makes it so much easier to be able to gather all of the information we need to be regenerated and re-energized when it comes to going back to our respective practices. Now, you mentioned the keynote speakers. I would love to hear more about who are our lovely keynote speakers this year.
Christie
So we have three awesome keynote speakers this year, one going each morning. So first we're gonna have Dr. Anand Iyer, who's gonna talk about re-imagining diabetes care and the transformative role of AI in health tech. We have Dr. Whitney Casares, who's gonna talk about doing it all and how to stop over-functioning and become the person you were meant to be. And Dr. Sharita Golden, who's gonna talk about expertise in action, disruptive innovations to advance diabetes care. So really great keynotes this year. I'm really excited about it. Different topics. And I think it's going to be awesome to get our day started each day.
Amy
Yeah, that is great. And because you have the inside track, what are some of the year's hot topics that everyone is going to be so excited to learn more about?
Christie
Well, I think AID is always a big one. We've seen a huge boom in AID over the past few years. So not only going to the exhibit hall to learn about AID, but we'll have sessions on AID as well. Another one that's interesting is dual glucose and ketone monitoring. So there is a new dual glucose ketone monitor coming. And I'm excited to learn about that. I think about it not even only for people with type 1 diabetes, but I'm curious to see how people on SGLT2 inhibitors do on these dual devices. I think that really intrigues me. We have cardiovascular kidney metabolic syndrome or CKM syndrome. There's presentations on that as well to keep us up to date. We've got a new guideline coming this year.
Christie
And I think one of them might be from you, correct? Yeah. So actually we, myself and Diana Isaacs together are presenting on CKM. So we are looking forward to that. To educating you on how to implement it into your clinical practice.
Amy
Wonderful.
Christie
Yeah. And then we have presentations on Masse-L-D and MASH. Always a hot topic, gender-affirming care, novel type 1 diabetes therapies, and how illness perception affects behaviors. I mean, there's plenty. I was looking at the full schedule, like what should we even highlight? I would encourage everyone that's attending to take a look at the full schedule because I think you're going to find that there's so many you want to go to even at the same time. So maybe even prioritizing ones that aren't recorded and going back and watching the recorded ones might be a good tip because just looking at it, I know there's a lot of things I want to go to even during the same time.
So we have so many great options. Like Amy, I know we even just talked about this, but there's one too, glycemic strategies for PET and CT scan preparation in people with diabetes and cancer. mean, kind of a niche topic, but at the same time, something that we get questions about and I really don't have the best evidence for how to proceed. So looking forward to even just some of these smaller topics that we get questions about in practice. It's great that we have sessions on them.
Amy
Yeah, and I know that ADCES in practice, we're going to have an article on PET scans sometime this year. So I'm so glad to hear that there's going to be something at ADCES 26 as well for that.
Christie
Yeah. And once weekly insulin too, that's something that we're all going to need to know. knowing how popular the once weekly GLP ones were, I assume once weekly insulin will take off as well and we'll need to be educated on that.
Amy
Oh yeah. And you brought up a really good point that sure, you know, we're going to be in person, but because there's so many amazing topics, making sure that people A, are kind of prioritizing even before they come to the conference, and then making sure that they have kind of their list of things that they want to hear after the fact, because then we'll have that access as well. So I think that's a really good idea that fret not, you will have access to these things even after the fact, but it would be great, you know, to see some of these in person as well. So I think that's very nice.
Christie
Yeah, absolutely. mean, go show up, support the speakers, ask questions. If you go live, you get to ask all the questions you want. So, especially if you have a lot of questions burning in your system, definitely go to the live one and ask the speakers. They can come drill me later after mine.
Amy
Yes, please, everyone, this is that plug. Make sure that you are just swarming Christie after her talk. OK, I want to make sure that I want to see photos of that for sure. I think that would be great.
Amy
Some hard question answers. And while of course ADCS 26 is going to be in Columbus, Ohio.
Christie
Well, as many of you know, I'm from University of Michigan, but I really like Columbus. I think it's a great city.
Amy
So what is in store for us outside of the conference when we go?
Christie
There's something for everyone in Columbus. I really do think it's a great small city with a lot going on. They have the short North Arts District for award-winning dining and nightlife. You can go grab food at the North Market. They have a lot of local food. There's art galleries, public art. There's a ton of green spaces. I actually took my dog with me last time I went. I might bring him again this time to take him to some dog parks. Hang out. So they have great green space there, riverfront parks and everything. And I was looking, ADCES did a really nice job on their website of things to do. So before you attend as well, they highlighted out events that are happening in Columbus on the specific days that the conference is held. So. ADCES has kind of done the work for you on their website. So take a look and see what they've highlighted as even just events that are going on within the city on the days were there.
Amy
That's great. And I know I have it from an expert source that lives around there. Make sure you hit the Franklin Park Conservatory Botanical Gardens as well as the Columbus Zoo if you have time. And again, they have the Columbus Crew Soccer Team that is also playing on August 7th and 11th. So just in case, again, for those soccer fans out there. The roar of the crowd, could go somewhere as well. Christie, thank you so very much for setting the stage for ADCES26. I cannot wait to see you there because even though we don't live far away, I never get to see you in person. So this will be wonderful to see you. And for everyone else, you can definitely register for the conference at www.ADCESmeeting.org. Visit us there to learn more about the program and Columbus as a destination.
That's www.ADCESmeeting.org and be sure to join us next time on Diabetes Care Conversations. Have a great day, friends.
Christie
Thank you, Amy. Have a great day.