Top 5 Medical Specialties with the Best Conference Destinations (2026–2027)
Anaesthesia, Surgery, Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, and Cardiothoracic Surgery — these 5 specialties have the most CPD conference options worldwide. Here are the best ones, sorted by destination appeal and sport event combos.
Photo: Lorem Picsum
Not all CPD is created equal. Some conferences you attend because the science is good. Others you attend because the science is good and the venue is somewhere you’d actually pay to visit.
I run CPD Route, a site that tracks medical conferences worldwide and pairs them with nearby races. A “combo” is exactly what it sounds like: one trip, two reasons to go. You fly in for the conference, and you stay for a race that happens within the same week. The rule is simple — the two events need to fall within 5 days and 1,500km of each other. That’s enough to catch a half marathon the weekend before your lectures, or a HYROX the morning after you present.
As of August 2026, the database covers 1,500 events across 33 specialties. The numbers make something obvious: if you’re in anaesthesia, you have options. If you’re in a smaller specialty, the pickings are slimmer — but the ones that exist tend to be in better places.
Here are the 5 specialties with the most conferences, and the best picks in each one — factoring in location, what you can do around the conference, and whether you can race while you’re there.
1. Anaesthesia — 270 conferences, 136 with combos
There are more anaesthesia conferences than any other specialty. You can afford to be selective.
Doctors Update Anaesthesia Forum — Algarve, Portugal
Doctors Update Anaesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Forum — September 15–17, 2026 — ★82
Highest-rated anaesthesia conference in the database. Algarve in mid-September: summer crowds have thinned, water’s still warm, and you’re surrounded by some of the most dramatic coastline in Europe. The Ponta da Piedade cliffs near Lagos are a 30-minute drive. Conference wraps Thursday — that gives you Friday through Sunday for beach recovery, or six sport events within range including the Hyundai Porto Half Marathon and Vilnius Marathon. Full combo trip.
Lisbon ESICM LIVES — Portugal
ESICM LIVES Lisbon — October 10–14, 2026 — ★75
Lisbon in October is still warm, Pastéis de Belém is still baking, and this conference has the single largest combo pool in the database — 30 races within range. The EDP Lisbon Marathon is basically the same weekend. All anaesthesia events.
2. Surgery — 236 conferences, 177 with combos
Surgery conferences cluster in Europe and North America. The sweet spot is May–June, when several major society meetings line up in cities that are genuinely worth the trip.
ESTS European Conference — Zurich, Switzerland
35th ESTS European Conference on General Thoracic Surgery — May 30–June 1, 2027 — ★60
Zurich at the end of May: the lake is swimmable, the Alps are visible from the conference centre, and you can be on a mountain trail within an hour of the last session. Trains run on time, the old town is walkable, you don’t need a car. The Cork City Marathon and Stockholm Marathon fall within the window if you’re up for a short flight.
ASCRS Tripartite Colorectal Meeting — New Orleans, USA
ASCRS Tripartite Colorectal Meeting 2027 — May 22–25, 2027 — ★60
New Orleans in late May. Jazz clubs on Frenchmen Street. Beignets at Café du Monde at 2am. Four marathons within range, including Buffalo and Vermont City. This one isn’t really about the race. All surgery events.
3. Critical Care — 50 conferences, 28 with combos
Punches above its weight. Fewer conferences but they’re in better places.
Critical Care Congress — San Diego, USA
2027 Critical Care Congress — March 14–17, 2027 — ★67
San Diego in March means 20°C and clear skies while the rest of the northern hemisphere is still frozen. Balboa Park is a 10-minute walk from the convention centre. The Gaslamp Quarter handles evenings. And here’s the part that got my attention: HYROX Las Vegas falls within the combo window. Critical care lecture in the morning, functional fitness race in Vegas by the weekend.
ISBP Meeting — Rome, Italy
40th ISBP Annual Meeting — October 7–9, 2026 — ★75
Rome. October. Twelve marathons within range. The conference is niche enough to be useful and the location needs no pitch. All critical care events.
4. Emergency Medicine — 146 conferences, 94 with combos
Nearly two-thirds of EM conferences have a sports event nearby — one of the highest combo ratios on the site. Also the most geographically spread: Europe, North America, and a growing presence in Asia-Pacific.
RCEM Annual Conference — Manchester, UK
RCEM Annual Conference 2027 — April 13–15, 2027 — ★60
Manchester in April is not a beach holiday. But the numbers are hard to ignore: 31 sport events within range, including Rotterdam, Paris, and Boston marathons. If you’re an EM doc who runs, this is a launchpad to some of the biggest spring races in the world. Northern Quarter handles food and drink. Peak District is an hour away.
IFAD 2026 — Antwerp, Belgium
IFAD 2026 — December 3–5, 2026 — ★67
Christmas markets, Belgian beer, and the Valencia Marathon the same weekend. Twelve combos total. All emergency medicine events.
5. Cardiothoracic Surgery — 9 conferences, 7 with combos
Smallest of the top 5, but the locations trend toward destination cities. When your specialty only runs a couple of big meetings a year, each one counts.
ISHLT Annual Meeting — Sydney, Australia
ISHLT 47th Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions — April 14–17, 2027 — ★60
Sydney in April is autumn: perfect running weather and harbour views that actually justify the flight. The Canberra Times Marathon falls within range. Bondi to Coogee coastal walk. Ferry to Manly. This is the conference you build annual leave around.
ESTS Zurich — same meeting as Surgery above
Zurich serves both surgery and cardiothoracic surgery — it’s a thoracic meeting that spans both crowds. See the surgery section for details. All cardiothoracic surgery events.
Where the data comes from
CPD Route’s event database tracks 1,500 events across 33 specialties. Combos are detected automatically: a conference and sport event within a 5-day window and 1,500km of each other. Ratings combine source quality, description depth, and registration cost where available.
The 5 specialties above account for 711 events — nearly half of everything tracked. If you’re in one of these fields, you have more choice than you probably realize. If you’re not, the specialties page lists all 33 with live counts. The ratings page ranks every combo from ★95 down, and the browse page gives you the full dataset with filters.
The whole thing is open. New sources get added most weeks.
CPD Route is a free, open-source tool for medical professionals planning CPD travel. Event data is machine-collected and verified against official sources. Last updated: August 3, 2026.