 There were different sets of conferences designed to cover specific topics, for a total of 160 conferences over the 19 years this program was active; the phrase "Macy conference" does not apply only to those on Cybernetics, although it is sometimes used that way informally by those familiar only with that set of events.Disciplinary isolation within medicine was viewed as particularly problematic by the Macy Foundation, and given that their mandate was to aid medical research, they decided to do something about it.Thus other topics covered in different sets of conferences included