Deep technical discussions about the new MRI techniques for uncovering cerebral arterial sclerosis. A long, badly delivered, but still important (I suppose) paper from a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute about the complexities of coronary valve imaging. Two radiographic technologists from St Louis doing a double act on a pioneering technique they developed for early ultrasound detection of ectopic pregnancies (I was cheered by my fellow technologists being saluted for a breakthrough that research scientists usually handle – and which they discovered through sheer application of all their years of technical knowledge). And a talk about advances in intravenous radiographic dyes and their heightened efficacy. Yes, I did listen to everything being said in these back-to-back sessions. Yes, my brain occasionally did register interest in what was being discussed. But, for the most part of the long afternoon I spent in that large, overheated conference room, I was elsewhere. It was all due to that overheard conversation in the elevator.
