How to Maximize the 2026 Meeting Season as a Heme/Onc Fellow

The 2026 conference season is here, and for hematology-oncology fellows, it represents one of the most valuable — and overwhelming — opportunities of the entire training year. Between AACR (April), ASCO (May 29–June 2, Chicago), and ASH (December), the next several months of oncology meetings will be packed with practice-changing data, networking opportunities, and career-defining moments.

But here's what no one tells you: showing up is only 20% of the job. The other 80% is knowing how to prepare, prioritize, and follow up. This guide will walk you through exactly how to squeeze every drop of value out of the 2026 meeting season.

Why the Meeting Season Matters for Fellows

For attendings, conferences are a chance to update practice and reconnect with colleagues. For you, the stakes are different and arguably higher:

• You're building your foundational knowledge of the field at the exact moment the landscape is shifting

• You're identifying mentors, collaborators, and future employers

• You're learning what research questions matter to the field—which is essential if you're planning on academic medicine

• You're establishing your professional identity and presence in the heme/onc community

Approaching meetings with this mindset—rather than treating them as a passive CME exercise—completely changes what you get out of them.

Before the Meeting: Strategic Preparation

Know the Landscape Before You Arrive

The single biggest mistake fellows make at major conferences is arriving without a plan and then spending three days wandering from session to session hoping something will be useful.

Do this instead:

• Review the program at least 2 weeks before the conference opens. For ASCO, the abstract book and session schedule are released well in advance.

• Identify your top 5–10 "must-attend" sessions based on your clinical interests and research focus. These are non-negotiable; build everything else around them.

• Review the abstracts for sessions you plan to attend. Reading a 300-word abstract in advance means you'll understand the context during the presentation and be able to formulate real questions—not just sit there processing.

• Flag late-breaking abstract sessions. These carry the highest-impact data. At ASCO 2026, the plenary session is where the most practice-changing trials are typically unveiled.

Use AI to Find the Abstracts That Actually Matter to You

Once the ASCO or ASH abstract book is published on their respective websites, you're looking at thousands of abstracts. Manually sorting through them to find what's relevant to your clinical interests and research background is genuinely painful—and most fellows either skip it entirely or end up with a generic list.

Here's a smarter approach using AI tools like Perplexity or Gemini:

1. Upload your CV directly to Gemini (gemini.google.com) or Perplexity (perplexity.ai). These tools can read and process document uploads. Share your CV and tell the AI: "Here is my CV. Based on my clinical interests, research background, and training, which abstracts from the [ASCO/ASH] 2026 abstract book are most relevant to me?"

2. Get a personalized shortlist. Within minutes, you'll have a curated list of abstracts matched to your actual background — not just a generic "top 10 lymphoma abstracts" list, but ones relevant to your specific research focus or clinical subspecialty interest.

3. Ask follow-up questions. Once it surfaces relevant abstracts, you can prompt: "For each of these, give me a one-sentence summary and flag any that might conflict with current NCCN guidelines." This turns abstract prep from a chore into a targeted learning session.

This is one of the highest-yield uses of AI in fellowship prep right now. It takes 20 minutes and produces a personalized conference game plan that would otherwise take hours to build manually.

Map Your Networking Targets

Conferences are not just about the science—they're about the people. Before you go:

• Identify 3–5 people you genuinely want to meet. These might be researchers whose work you've cited, potential fellowship directors at institutions you'd consider for a faculty position, or leaders in your subspecialty interest.

• Reach out in advance via email or LinkedIn. Something brief: "I'm a second-year heme/onc fellow attending ASCO this year. I've been following your work on [specific topic]. Would you have 15 minutes to grab coffee during the conference?" Many people say yes.

• Find out which alumni from your program will be attending. These are the easiest warm connections you have.

Prepare Your Elevator Pitch

You will be asked—dozens of times—"What are you working on?" Have a 30-second answer ready:

"I'm a second-year heme/onc fellow at [institution]. My clinical interests are lymphoma and bone marrow transplant, and I'm currently working on a project looking at outcomes after CAR-T in the real-world setting."

Practice it until it feels natural. This is how every meaningful conference conversation starts.

At the Meeting: How to Navigate the Chaos

The Plenary Session Is Non-Negotiable

At ASCO, the Plenary Session is where the field-defining trials are presented. This is the moment when attendees audibly react, Twitter explodes (or whatever it's called now), and treatment paradigms shift in real time. Be there in person if at all possible.

Similarly, at ASH, the Presidential Symposium and late-breaking abstracts carry the highest signal. Don't skip these to attend a smaller symposium that feels more comfortable.

Choose Depth Over Breadth

The temptation at large conferences is to sprint from session to session covering as many topics as possible. Resist this urge.

A better approach:

• Pick 2–3 disease areas to cover deeply rather than touching everything superficially

• Attend the oral abstract session, the expert discussion panel, and the poster session for those disease areas. You'll leave with a complete, three-dimensional understanding of where the field is heading

• Engage at the poster sessions—these are underutilized by fellows. You can have a direct, unhurried conversation with the actual researcher. Ask the questions you wouldn't ask in a 500-person lecture hall

Take Structured Notes: Let AI Do the Heavy Lifting

You will forget 80% of what you heard within 48 hours unless you write it down. But here's a smarter system than scribbling notes you'll never revisit:

Set up a Notion workspace as your conference hub. Create one page per disease area before you arrive (e.g., "ASCO 2026 — Lymphoma," "ASCO 2026 — AML/MDS"). During sessions, jot down rough bullet points — trial names, key numbers, questions that come up. It doesn't have to be polished.

Then let Notion AI clean it up for you. After each session, highlight your raw notes and ask Notion AI to: "Organize these notes into a structured summary with key findings, clinical implications, and open questions." In 30 seconds, your messy bullet points become a clean, shareable reference document.

By the end of the conference, you'll have a personal, organized knowledge base — broken down by disease area — that you can actually use when you get home. No more losing notes in a notebook you never open again.

Disclosure: Notion AI is a paid feature within the Notion platform. We have no financial relationship with Notion and no conflict of interest to disclose — we just think it's a genuinely useful tool for this purpose.

If you prefer free options, the same workflow works with Google Docs + Gemini or any AI-enabled notes app. The key is the habit: rough notes in → structured summary out, same day.

• One page per disease area, updated after each session

• Flag anything that changes what you'd recommend to a patient on Monday morning

• Note any unanswered questions raised by a presentation — these are often the seeds of future research

Attend the Fellow-Specific Programming

Both ASCO and ASH now offer robust programming specifically for trainees—career development workshops, mentoring sessions, in-person small group workshops on topics like "how to publish a peer-reviewed manuscript" or "genomics 101 for the medical oncologist." These are some of the most practically useful sessions at the entire meeting, and they're often capped at small group sizes.

Register for these early. Space is limited and they fill up fast.

Protect Your Energy

Conferences are exhausting — and burnout is a real risk for fellows during meeting season. You're walking miles per day, processing enormous amounts of information, and socializing intensely—all while probably jet-lagged.

• Build in recovery time. You don't have to be in a session every hour of every day.

• Eat real food. Conference center food is terrible. Find one good restaurant near the venue and actually sit down for dinner.

• Limit late nights, especially early in the conference. The most important sessions are often on day one and two. Showing up exhausted to the plenary is a waste.

What to Do With Sessions You Can't Attend

At a conference like ASCO, with hundreds of sessions running in parallel, you will miss important presentations. This is unavoidable. Here's how to catch up:

• ASCO and ASH both record sessions and make them available to registered attendees after the conference. Block time the week after the meeting to watch the 3–5 sessions you missed.

• Follow oncology Twitter/X and oncology-focused newsletters (ASCO Post, OncLive, NEJM Evidence) during the conference for rapid summaries of key data

• Ask your co-fellows and attendees who attended different sessions to give you a 5-minute debrief. This is one of the most underutilized collaborative learning strategies in fellowship

After the Meeting: Making It Stick

Update Your Clinical Knowledge

For every major trial presented at a conference, ask yourself: Does this change what I'd recommend to a patient today? If the answer is yes, update your mental model. If you're unsure, review the NCCN guideline or ASCO guideline update that will follow within weeks to months.

Follow Up on Networking Contacts

Within 48–72 hours of returning:

• Send a brief follow-up email to anyone you had a meaningful conversation with: "Great to meet you at ASCO. I really appreciated your thoughts on [topic]. Hope to stay in touch."

• Connect on LinkedIn with anyone relevant. Do it now, while the connection is fresh

• Add any potential mentors to a list you revisit when you're deciding on abstract submissions, fellowship applications, or career moves

Present What You Learned to Your Program

Many fellowship programs host a post-meeting conference update where fellows present key highlights. Volunteer for this. It forces you to synthesize what you learned, gives you a teaching opportunity, and builds your reputation as someone who takes education seriously. If your program has a journal club, presenting a key conference abstract there is another excellent option.

How to Get the Most Out of ASCO 2026 Specifically

With ASCO 2026 just weeks away (May 29–June 2, Chicago), here's what to watch:

• Plenary and late-breaking abstracts: These will define the conversation for the next 12 months in oncology

• Hematologic malignancies track: Follow lymphoma, AML/MDS, and myeloma sessions closely—these areas are moving fast

• Immunotherapy and cellular therapy updates: CAR-T continues to expand into earlier lines and new indications; expect major data presentations

• Early registration deadline is April 22—don't miss it

If you can only attend one major meeting as a fellow, ASCO is worth prioritizing. It is the largest and most comprehensive oncology meeting in the world, and being there in person—especially for the plenary, is an experience that shapes how you see the field.

A Word on Imposter Syndrome at Conferences

This is real and almost universal among fellows at their first major meetings. You're surrounded by luminaries whose names are on the trials you study. It's easy to feel like you don't belong.

Here's the truth: everyone started somewhere. The investigator presenting a phase III plenary trial today was a fellow asking questions at a poster session fifteen years ago. You belong at the meeting. Your questions are valid. Your curiosity is exactly what these events are designed for.

Show up. Introduce yourself. Ask the uncomfortable question at the microphone. You'll be surprised how welcomed you are.

Final Thoughts

The 2026 meeting season is an extraordinary opportunity—but only if you approach it with intention. Prepare before you arrive, go deep rather than wide during the meeting, and follow up deliberately afterward. The fellows who get the most out of these medical conferences aren't the ones who attend the most sessions. They're the ones who show up with a plan, engage genuinely, and do the work to integrate what they learned.

You have the whole field in front of you. Make the most of it.

Want to walk into ASCO 2026 with your clinical knowledge sharp and your board prep on track? Access the MeDucation question bank, AI-powered learning tools, and evidence-based handouts designed specifically for hematology-oncology fellows at meducationai.com.