ACR National Meeting
By Tiffany Sae Kho, PGY-II, R-I
I had the opportunity to attend the American College of Radiology 2016 annual meeting in Washington D.C. May 14th-19th as a first year Indiana University radiology resident thanks to the Indiana Radiological Society. There were in total ten residents from Indiana University that were able to attend the meeting. I had a fantastic experience and would just like to share some highlights of our week.
The resident and fellow section started over the weekend with a number of sessions that were geared specifically for radiologists in training. Dr. Frank Lexa, who was also spoke at the spring meeting of the Indiana Radiologic Society, presented “How to Nail a Job Interview- Secrets from Wharton.” The lecture covered important questions to ask an interviewer, questions to never ask an interviewer, and questions we should never be asked as interviewees. Our own Dr. Richard Gunderman gave a lecture on Bill Cook, the humble entrepreneur and philanthropist who helped found interventional radiology. Our fourth year chief resident Will Kerridge participated in a heated debate on Eliminating the Intern year from Radiology Training.
There was a leadership session on team building from a military, large corporation, and large academic practice standpoint. We had a chance to listen to Colonel James E Harris, a former west point graduate; Robert Cancalosi, director of GE global customer leadership education; and Dr. Richard Baron, former chair of the department of radiology at University of Chicago and University of Pittsburgh. We learned about Project Aristotle, Google’s data analysis of 150 teams in attempts to determine what constitutes a great team. They found that in great teams members spoke in roughly same proportion, there was an overall high average social sensitivity, and teams had strong psychological safety. We were able to reflect how we could apply these ideas to our IU resident leadership meetings as well as personally.
We learned about the current evolving state of radiology. President Dr. David Kushner gave a clear, thought-provoking presentation on the changes for radiology in the future and the shift to patient/family centered care. This was followed by the Keynote address given by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who admittedly said he doesn’t have many friends in radiology. He spoke his forecast for medicine in the future and predicted decreased uses of the hospital, more care in patient’s homes, and most controversially, spoke about machine learning being a real threat to radiology. He emphasized that this threat was inevitable, and stated “Machines are able to improve their predictive accuracy, shorter time for reading and interpretation, and isn’t affected by fatigue or emotions.” As physicians in training, Dr. Emanuel’s opinions gave us a lot to think about and talk about later that evening at dinner.
Contrary to the Keynote address, the next day the Moreton Lecture was highly motivational and entitled “Step Out of the Dark and Into the Light” by Andrew De Lao (better known as @cancergeek). Andrew has an extensive background in health care, cancer services, radiology/oncology, and has helped developed hospitals and cancer centers. His key message was radiologists should not let other people tell our stories because it devalues our impact and the importance of radiology. He focused on shifting from the experience economy to the connection economy, and at the very top of this pyramid would be meeting a radiologist as an ideal patient experience. The n of 1 can make a difference in the patient’s ideal experience with 4 T’s: time, trust, transparency, and transitioning with our patients in the journey of health care.
Of course, we learned about a little about radiology politics and participated in Capitol Hill day. RADPAC is constantly lobbying in D.C. for the political interests of radiology. They had two recent victories with HR 2029 with reducing the professional component multiple procedure payment from 25%-5%, and in placing a 2-year moratorium on the currently flawed screening for mammography issued by USPSTF.
On Capitol Hill we had a chance to meet Senator Joe Donnelly, Congressman Andre Carson, the legislative assistant of Senator Dan Coats, and the legislative assistant of Congresswoman Susan Brooks. Topics discussed were HR 1151s/1151 the USPSTF transparency and accountability act. This proved a valuable experience, illuminating the importance of lobbying for our profession.
Last, but certainly not least, this week was a great opportunity to network with residents from other institutions. We had a chance to mingle with other residents from across the country during the weekly sessions as well as after the day was finished! I had a great time getting to bond with my fellow amazing co-residents from IU as well. We all plan to encourage resident participation in IRS and will share our positive experiences with the residents who were unable to attend.
