Western Student Medical Research Forum

Carmel 2009

Congratulations on having your abstracts accepted for presentation! This year 95 students submitted abstracts which were accepted.

Dean Ramsey is committed to providing funding assistance to enable you to participate in the Forum. We will provide assistance for lodging, rental car, meal per diem, and miscellaneous expenses if you are currently enrolled and in good standing in the School of Medicine during Winter A Quarter.

Outlined below are the major conference expenses. Use this as a guide for making your arrangements, staying within a reasonable budget, and retaining receipts. If you have any difficulties making your own travel arrangements, please contact us.

Airfare
• You will be responsible for purchasing your airline ticket; you will be reimbursed for this cost after we receive a copy of your itinerary showing payment.
• You will be reimbursed for a maximum of $300 for airfare into San Jose or San Francisco, and a maximum of $350 for airfare into Monterey.

Ground Transportation
• You are responsible for making your rental car reservations. Individually, you will be reimbursed for one day's car rental; therefore, we recommend that you share with your classmates accordingly. You will be reimbursed for no more than $65 per day (base price).
• We recommend that you fly to San Jose and rent a car to Monterey. In planning arrival and/or departure times, remember that it is a two-hour drive (in good weather) from San Jose to Carmel.
• If you fly directly into Monterey, you will not be reimbursed for a car rental, but will be reimbursed for shuttle/taxi fares from the Monterey airport to your hotel.
• We recommend that you rent through Enterprise Rent-A-Car; the UW has an account with this company and you will be eligible for a greatly-reduced rate. You can rent through Enterprise's web site. Reference account number 45WA033, and "WAS" as the PIN when logging in.
• You will be reimbursed for one gas receipt for your rental car.
• Transportation costs to and from the Seattle airport are not reimbursable, nor are parking fees at SeaTac.

Hotel Reservations
• Make arrangements with the Monterey Beach Hotel. You can phone them (800-242-8627) or make reservations online (directions will be sent to you by the WSMRF). The maximum we will reimburse is one-half of the room charge for the Monterey Beach Hotel per student per night; therefore we encourage you to share a room with another classmate.
• Please be sure to have the hotel provide you with a " folio " showing dates of your stay and that you have paid in full. We will only reimburse the student whose name appears on the folio as having paid for the lodging. In order to be reimbursed for the full cost of the lodging, you must provide us with the name of the student with whom you shared a room.

Per Diem Reimbursement
• The University per diem rate for meals & incidentals is $16 for breakfast, $19 for lunch, and $29 for dinner. To be reimbursed for these amounts, no receipts are required.
• You will not receive meal reimbursement for meals that are provided at the conference. The chart below shows which meals are reimbursable:

  	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
  Wednesday, January 29th	-	-	yes
  Thursday, January 30th	yes	yes	-
  Friday, January 31st	yes	yes	-
  Saturday, February 1st	yes	yes	-

  
  
• If you elect to participate in the Resident's Lunch, you will not be reimbursed for lunch on Saturday, February 1st.
• If you elect to participate in a Breakfast With The Investigator session, you will not be reimbursed for breakfast on that morning.
• You will only be reimbursed for meals while traveling to and from, or attending the conference.

Registration and Abstract Publication Fees
• You will need provide your receipts for the $110 registration fee and for the $75 abstract fee in order for us process your reimbursement.

Other Miscellaneous Expenses
• Other costs, such as tips, slide preparation, etc. will be your responsibility or may be covered by your sponsor.
• You will not be reimbursed for any expenses incurred outside of direct travel and attendance at the conference.

If you have any questions about travel reimbursement, please feel free to contact Scott Bailey at 206-685-7022 or gowwami@u.washington.edu.

Aaron Kusano and Jordan Sand are our representatives on the WSMRF Committee. They may also be able to answer your questions and tell you about their experience at the meeting last year.

Once again, congratulations! We know this will be a great experience for you!

DETAILS YOU WANT TO KNOW:

It can take up to six weeks for the University Travel Office to process forms for reimbursement, so do not delay in getting your receipts to Scott Bailey in the Academic Affairs Office, A-300!

BRING IN YOUR RECEIPTS NO LATER THAN March 2, 2009. WE WILL BE UNABLE TO PROCESS RECEIPTS AFTER THIS DATE!

How the process works:

Once you supply Scott with your receipts, he will create forms for you to sign and date. He won't be able to do these while you wait, and will ask that you return the next day to sign them, or he will email you the forms. Please allow up to six weeks from the time you sign the forms to the time the check arrives.