Good Day to the MRS Membership! It’s a great time to be a radiologist and a great time to be an ACR and MRS member. There is so much going on in our local chapter and at the national level that it would be impossible for the individual practicing radiologist, radiation oncologist or radiation physicist to keep up without guidance, direction, support and resources from the MRS and ACR.
Shannon said I had to give the Presidential Address so I put down 17500 Oak Hill Drive in Northville but she said…no, not YOUR address!….it was to be an introduction to my leadership style, what I hoped to accomplish during my term, my vision. Wow. I am so fortunate to follow in the footsteps of so many great MRS Presidents (Kasotakis, Shah and Junewick most recently) and yet so unfortunate for me personally in that they set the bar so high that it could be difficult to meet the membership’s expectations!
With that in mind I want to present “lower” expectations.
I want to lower the threshold of getting involved in our organization. We added some new blood to some of our more active committees with hopes that this will inject some enthusiasm and open ourselves to new ideas. We want to continue to build on the success of our Up North, Young Physicians and Breast Conferences. This year our commitment to hold meetings in different parts of the state takes us to Kalamazoo and the Air Zoo Museum. We would like to resurrect the “Ambassador Program” where MRS officers will come to your practice to extol the virtues of ACR and MRS membership.
I want to lower the barriers to interaction of MRS membership with other state societies and build on our success with the Florida, Ohio and New York State Radiological Societies. We will look for more opportunities to collaborate on educational, scientific, economic and social exchange of ideas, values and mission.
I want to lower the incidence of adverse patient safety events and radiologist and institutional isolation by starting each MRS meeting with a RAVE case and/or Patient Safety story. For those of you fortunate enough to have missed my introduction speech in Ann Arbor last May: RAVE is an acronym for “Radiology Adds Value Everyday”. By promoting patient safety and demonstrating how we add value we show our non-radiologist physician colleagues, administrators and legislators that radiology and radiologists are integral to the successful and safe practice of medicine. Sharing these stories amongst ourselves gives us, the MRS Membership, an incredible learning experience.
Of course, I am honored and humbled to be President of our great state society and I look forward to a good year. Please send me your RAVE cases or patient safety stories so that I can anonymously share them with the membership in the newsletter, on the web site or at one of our monthly meetings. Thanks again. See you Up North!