The Conference After the Conference. The Invisible Curriculum of GIN 2026: Lessons Nobody Put on the Programme 

“Oh, Toodles!”  

 If you have little children at home, you probably know exactly where that comes from. In Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Mickey and his friends go on adventures with the help of Mouseketools. Some are familiar objects, and others are rather unusual. But there is always one I find particularly interesting: the Mystery Mouseketool. They don’t know what it is at the beginning of the adventure. Its identity is revealed later, when they need it to solve a problem. As someone who watches children’s cartoons with my kids, I never imagined I would be drawing lessons from Mickey Mouse to reflect on an international scientific conference. 

But here we are!  

 I recently returned from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where I attended the Guidelines International Network (GIN) 2026 Conference, held from 15–18 September under the theme Guidelines for All: Bridging Tradition, Technology and High-Value Care. GIN brings together researchers, clinicians, policymakers, guideline developers, and other professionals working to ensure that decisions about health are informed by trustworthy evidence. My conference programme was quite packed. I was participating in the opening plenary, co-moderating a debate, chairing a scientific session, engaging with early- and mid-career professionals and attending my first in-person GIN Board meeting. And, of course, hoping to attend as many interesting sessions as possible in between.  

But looking back, some of the things I brought home were not on that programme. They came from listening to someone describe a problem differently, revisiting my own professional journey, facilitating disagreements, and finally meeting people I had worked with for almost a year without ever sitting in the same room. Some of these experiences have already changed how I think. Others have given me questions I am still working through. My own collection of Mystery Mouseketools, if you like. 

The interesting part is that I am still discovering what some of them might be useful for.  

A Mastermind Across Continents 

One of my most memorable experiences was participating in the opening plenary on the global state of guidelines. The session brought together perspectives from Cameroon, Malaysia, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Korea, China, the Philippines, South Africa and broader Europe. I had the opportunity to share Cameroon’s experiences, particularly around who funds guideline development, the challenges we face and opportunities for collaboration. 

 Now, if you work in evidence-informed decision-making, you probably know that developing a guideline is not simply a matter of gathering the best research and writing recommendations. Someone has to identify the priority questions. Someone has to finance the process. Evidence must be assessed, recommendations developed, and the resulting guidance made accessible and usable. And the conditions under which all this happens differ considerably across countries. A guideline developed in a well-resourced health system may recommend an intervention supported by specialised personnel, equipment or services that are not readily available elsewhere. 

The underlying evidence may be relevant, but implementing the recommendation requires much more than translating the document into another language. This is why the conversation on guideline adaptation was particularly interesting to me. At eBASE Africa, we have been developing a guideline transfer model to explore how existing guidelines can be adapted across different contexts. Our interest is not simply in moving recommendations from one setting to another, but in understanding what needs to be considered for those recommendations to remain credible, relevant and practical. During the conference, including in Miyaka's workshop on guideline adaptation, I encountered ideas that made me think about opportunities to further test and strengthen this work. 

And somewhere in these exchanges, I remembered Napoleon Hill. Earlier this year, I completed Think and Grow Rich. One concept that fascinated me was the mastermind principle: the idea that bringing different minds together around a common purpose can generate thinking that individuals might not achieve alone. Hill even describes holding imaginary meetings with people he admired, drawing on their knowledge and qualities. I remember reading that part and thinking, Interesting! Then I found myself in Kuala Lumpur, surrounded by people from different countries, each bringing years of experience to questions we were all trying to answer. 

A real-life mastermind! 

 But I also realised something. Being surrounded by knowledgeable people is not the same as engaging with their knowledge. We can sit through excellent presentations, take photographs of slides, applaud and move on without ever asking how what we have heard connects to the problems we are trying to solve. For me, the most useful part of the plenary was not simply hearing how guideline systems differ across countries. It was beginning to think about what those differences could teach us as we develop approaches suited to our own context. That is a different way of attending a conference. You are no longer collecting information for its own sake. You are actively looking for connections between other people’s experiences and the questions waiting for you back home. 

Sharing perspectives from Cameroon alongside colleagues representing different guideline systems and contexts. 

When Someone Asks How You Got Here: Early and Mid career Interactions 

Another experience that stayed with me was the early- and mid-career networking session. I had the opportunity to interact with younger professionals and share my journey into research, my growth into programme management and leadership, and eventually how I came to join the GIN Board of Trustees. I also shared experiences from implementing guidelines. Now, there is something interesting about explaining your professional journey to someone else. When you are living it, you don’t necessarily see a carefully planned sequence of achievements. You are simply working. Learning something new. Taking on responsibilities. Making decisions. Making mistakes. Trying again. Finding opportunities. Sometimes wondering whether you are even moving in the right direction. Then someone asks how you got to where you are today. And suddenly, you have to connect the dots! Preparing to share my experiences made me reflect on decisions, opportunities and people who have shaped my journey. It also reminded me how much of professional development happens outside formal training. Yes, qualifications matter. Technical skills matter. But so do the opportunities to apply what you know, the responsibilities you accept before you feel completely ready, and the people who challenge you to grow. 

I found the experience particularly interesting because, at the same conference, I was both learning from people with considerably more experience in guideline science and sharing my own experiences with professionals earlier in their careers. 

And I was learning in both spaces. We sometimes imagine professional growth as a ladder. At the bottom, we learn. At the top, we teach. But my experience in Kuala Lumpur reminded me that these roles are not mutually exclusive. You can be learning something new in one room and sharing something valuable in another. I also thought about the people who have opened doors for me along the way. An invitation to contribute. A recommendation. An opportunity to take responsibility. Someone making time to explain something. These things can look quite ordinary to the person offering them, yet make a significant difference to the person receiving them. It made me think more intentionally about how I can create similar opportunities for others. 

Sharing experiences from research, programme management, guideline implementation and my journey to the GIN Board. 

What a Debate About Planetary Health Taught Me About Leadership 

One of my first-time experiences at GIN 2026 was co-moderating the Big GIN Debate with Holger Schünemann. 

The subject was planetary health in health guidelines. 

 It was an interesting debate because the issue is not simply whether environmental considerations matter for health. The more difficult question is how guideline developers should account for planetary health when assessing evidence and making recommendations. How do we consider environmental consequences alongside health benefits, harms, feasibility and other important factors? How do we avoid oversimplifying a complex problem without becoming so overwhelmed by complexity that we cannot make decisions? And, importantly, how do we ensure that including planetary health in guidelines leads to meaningful action rather than becoming another requirement on paper? These are not questions with easy answers. As a moderator, I was not there to settle the debate. My responsibility was to help the different perspectives emerge, keep the conversation moving and create space for meaningful engagement. That experience stayed with me for reasons beyond the scientific discussion. I manage people and programmes in my everyday work. Sometimes, I am expected to provide direction, make decisions and ensure that things move forward. But facilitating a debate reminded me that leadership is not always about being the person with the answer. 

Sometimes it is about knowing which question to ask. 

Sometimes it is about allowing different views to be heard without rushing to resolve the disagreement. And sometimes it is about recognising that a difficult discussion can still be productive even when everyone does not leave with the same opinion. I also chaired Session 5G on guidelines in low- and middle-income countries. This brought me back to a subject particularly close to my work: the relationship between good evidence and the realities of implementation. A recommendation may be scientifically sound, but if it does not adequately consider local resources, health-system capacity, costs and the people expected to implement it, its impact may be limited. For countries such as Cameroon, this makes guideline adaptation and implementation particularly important. It also raises a wider question for global guideline science: how do we ensure that the contexts in which guidelines will be used influence their development, rather than becoming an afterthought? I went to Kuala Lumpur prepared to discuss guidelines. I did not expect that moderating and chairing sessions would also make me reconsider how I lead conversations with my own team. That was certainly not among my official learning objectives! 

The Table I Had Been Trying to Reach 

There was another moment in Kuala Lumpur that meant a great deal to me. My first in-person GIN Board meeting. I joined the Board of Trustees in September 2025, but until Kuala Lumpur, my participation had been virtual. Not because I did not want to attend physically. I had experienced visa refusals that prevented me from participating in international professional meetings, including the GIN conference in Geneva and a Board meeting in Rome. So finally meeting my fellow Trustees and GIN staff in person was special. Imagine working with people for almost a year, seeing their faces in little boxes on your screen, exchanging emails and discussing important matters, but never actually sitting together. Then suddenly, there they are! No internet connection to worry about. No waiting for someone to unmute. Beyond the joy of meeting colleagues physically, the experience gave me another opportunity to reflect on governance. Joining the Board has meant moving from being part of a professional network to helping contribute to its stewardship. I am learning to think about the network’s direction, its responsibilities, the interests of its members and the decisions required to sustain its work. This is different from my day-to-day programme management responsibilities at eBASE Africa, and I value the opportunity to learn from fellow Trustees and staff with different experiences. 

But sitting at that table also made me think about something else. 

Access  

We frequently discuss equity, inclusion and representation in global research and professional networks. Yet someone can have the qualifications, experience, invitation and willingness to contribute, and still be unable to enter the country where an important meeting is taking place. What happens to global representation when participation depends partly on whose passport can cross a border? Virtual participation has created important opportunities, and I am grateful that I could continue contributing to the Board remotely. But Kuala Lumpur reminded me that physical participation can offer additional opportunities for connection, informal exchange and relationship-building. If international networks are serious about inclusion, we must continue thinking beyond who is invited to the table. We must also think about who can actually get there. 

Almost one year after joining the Board, finally meeting colleagues I had been working with virtually. 

The Conference After the Conference 

There is a familiar scene at the end of almost every conference. People exchange contacts. 

“We should explore this together.” 

 “Let’s keep in touch.” 

 “I’ll send you that paper.” 

 “We should arrange a meeting.” 

 Then come the photographs, the goodbyes and the journey home. And within a few days, everyone is back to their usual responsibilities. Emails. Reports. Deadlines. Meetings. Teams to manage. Projects to deliver. The conference badge is somewhere in a bag, and the programme is no longer dictating how the day unfolds. But what happens to all those conversations? This is the question I have been thinking about since returning from Kuala Lumpur. We often assess conferences by the quality of the programme, the speakers, the sessions we attended and the people we met. Those things matter. But perhaps we should also pay attention to what survives after everyone goes home. An interesting conversation is not yet a collaboration. An exchanged contact is not yet a professional relationship. A promising idea is not yet an innovation. And attending a conference does not automatically mean our work will improve. That requires another kind of effort. Following up. Reading the paper someone recommended. Continuing a conversation. Testing an idea. Making an introduction. Sharing what we learned with colleagues who could not attend. It requires us to move from collecting knowledge to doing something with it. 

This was another idea from Think and Grow Rich that stayed with me: knowledge becomes valuable through its application. For me, GIN 2026 has left several things worth pursuing.The discussions on guideline adaptation have given me ideas to explore as we further develop and test our guideline transfer model at eBASE Africa. The international exchanges have opened possibilities for learning and collaboration that will require continued engagement. The early- and mid-career networking session has encouraged me to think more intentionally about sharing experiences and creating opportunities for other professionals. 

And the debate, chairing and Board experiences have given me questions to carry into my everyday leadership and governance responsibilities. I cannot yet tell you what all these opportunities will produce. And I don’t want to pretend that every good conversation has already become a successful collaboration. Some may develop into meaningful work. Others may help us understand why an approach is not suitable for our context. Some connections may grow over time. The important thing is to give them the opportunity to become something. That is what I mean by the conference after the conference. The one without a venue, registration desk, name badge or closing ceremony. The one that begins when you return to your work and decide what to do with everything you brought home. 

So, What Was My Mystery Mouseketool? 

GIN 2026 was a conference of many firsts for me. My first visit to Asia. My first in-person GIN conference and Board meeting. My first time co-moderating a debate and chairing a session at GIN. These were meaningful personal milestones. But what has stayed with me most is how much learning happened beyond what I had planned. 

 The scientific discussions challenged my thinking about guideline adaptation. The networking session made me revisit my professional journey. The debate gave me a different perspective on leadership. The Board meeting deepened my understanding of governance and reinforced my reflections on equity and access. And the conversations in between reminded me of the value of bringing different minds together. This is what I now think of as the invisible curriculum of conferences. 

 We arrive with a programme telling us what we are going to learn. But some of the most valuable lessons come from experiences we did not anticipate, people we did not expect to learn from, and questions that only become important when we return home. 

Which brings me back to Mickey Mouse. 

Mickey and his friends eventually discover what their Mystery Mouseketool is and how it can help them. I am still discovering what some of mine will become. Perhaps an idea from Kuala Lumpur will help us improve how guidelines are adapted in Cameroon. Perhaps a professional connection will develop into a meaningful collaboration. Perhaps something I shared with an early-career professional will become useful much later in their journey. And perhaps a lesson from moderating a debate will help me handle a difficult conversation with my team. We will only know if we put those tools to use. 

As I look ahead to GIN 2027 in Dublin, I am excited about the opportunity to reconnect, continue learning and see how some of these conversations develop. 

 And yes, I am hoping for a much friendlier visa experience this time!  For now, the photographs have been taken, the conference badge is off, and everyone has returned home. 

But the conference after the conference has only just begun.