The visiting speaker: Some tips and some traps.

Abstract

I should start with some confessions. I've made some mistakes as a visiting speaker, and I've also fallen into some traps when I've hosted visiting speakers, including eminent professors (Fig. 1). Mistakes? Well, twice, I've mixed up my departure dates. One resulted in me arriving a day late and missing my scheduled guest lecture, which had to be rearranged for the next day. On that occasion, while I was in mid-air, my hosts phoned my wife to see if I was all right as they were expecting me to dinner that evening and I hadn't arrived. The other time, I realised just in time that I was leaving ‘today’ rather than ‘tomorrow’, and just made the plane in time. At the receiving end, I've been graciously met at the airport late in the night but then deposited at the wrong hotel, one where no English was spoken. I've had my name spelt in a most bizarre way in the programme (no big deal) and another time arrived to find a programme showing me as giving a presentation I had not known about and had not prepared. On one occasion, arriving after 36 h with almost no sleep, I managed to nod off on stage during the opening ceremony, in front of 1500 people. Another time, my host supplied me with the name of a hotel I was not staying at because he thought it would be easier to spell on my visa application. So, I had unwittingly made a false declaration on the visa application, even though ignorance is no defence in the eyes of the law. I've also been given some very nice gifts of appreciation that unfortunately weighed almost half of my total luggage allowance. As a scientific meeting organiser, I once forgot to tell the visiting professor one of his lectures was a named oration. He was understandably embarrassed about not having prepared any appropriate introductory remarks for his presentation, so started off by saying: ‘Had I known this oration was named in honour of your pioneering urologist IP Freely….’ (obviously not the Oration's correct title) and returned to that theme more than once in his presentation. He forgave me, but it was pretty uncomfortable at the time. To make it worse, while chatting with him over coffee in the lecture theatre foyer, I somehow up-ended my full cup of black coffee over his pale, light-weight tropical suit. You guessed it; with an outfit like that, he had to be visiting from the UK. Being asked as a visiting speaker is a joy and a privilege. It's a great way to meet interesting people, develop lasting friendships and learn about new cultures. And if we're honest, it's a rather nice escape from the daily grind at home, being treated as somebody fairly important, when deep down most of us honestly know that it just isn't so. So, having inadvertently fallen into various traps, I thought I'd set out some tips for visiting speakers and for those who organise their visits: