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Since the
Annual Meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, the
SMRT has been exceedingly busy with several
projects, many of which involve working on future
collaborations integrating us closer with our parent
organisation, the ISMRM. Having representation on
ISMRM committees is giving a voice of the MR
Technologist/ Radiographer perspective to current
issues in our industry, in particular MRI safety.
Our Past President, Vera Kimbrell and former SMRT
Policy Board member, Titti Owman, have been very
active in our newly formed Safety Committee which
will address current issues under review with
implant manufacturers and vendors. This important
integration is one of many steps to further
integrate our common activities. We are also looking
forward to working jointly with the ISMRM in their
next international safety workshop being held in the
USA in November 2014. Vera, Titti and SMRT Home
Studies Chair Anne Sawyer, who all have a wealth of
experience, will be spearheading our resources in
support of this meeting. After successful
collaborations in previous ISMRM safety workshops,
we are excited to continue to raise the bar in MRI
safety education for our entire community. SMRT
resources will also support the ISMRM outreach
program with technologist speakers. As we continue
to work closer with our parent society, we will
continue to take advantage of each other’s resources to
provide comprehensive educational resources from all
perspectives for all needs.
SMRT Annual meeting Programme Chair, Rhonda
Walcarius, and Education Chair, Sheryl Foster, are
working hard with their committees on the 2014
annual meeting which will be in Milan, Italy next
May. With resources from our parent society the
ISMRM as well as the ESMRMB, we will have a
comprehensive range of forums addressing hot topics
from all corners of the globe. As in previous
meetings, we will be striving to cover both
diagnostic and research topics, and connecting the
MR Technologist/Radiographer perspectives with
Radiologists and researchers. We hope to see as many
MR Technologists/Radiographers from around the world
as possible as it’s your attendance which makes the
sharing of knowledge and valuable networking
feasible.
For those who are doing interesting clinical or
research activities, be sure to get started on
submitting an abstract to share your work. (Please
see the report from Sheryl Foster, Education
Committee Chair) For those of you who are not so
confident or doing this for the first time, check
our website at
http://www.ismrm.org/smrt/about/mentorship-program/.
We can also help connect you with a mentor to guide
you through the process. This year, the ISMRM have
significantly boosted our funding for prize money in
research and clinical awards as well as our JAK
Award for student submissions. These are explained
in the Education Committee article, along with our
submission deadlines. We encourage submissions from
all types of case mixes so go for it! Please feel
free to email us if you have any queries so we can
help you get on your way.
With currency of practice and self education
becoming compulsory in maintaining our
qualifications, recognising Modality specific
education is becoming essential in many countries'
regulatory requirements. This means MRI specific
educational material will be required to maintain
MRI qualifications. The number of online resources
we have available to our membership through our web
page is astounding. SMRT home study programmes have
been a well recognised source of professional
educational credit for many years. Being able to
complete these online has been a recent evolution
with many positives. Whilst members still have the
choice to print these out, online education has
streamlined the time to read and complete the online
quiz to earn credit, with higher efficiency and
receive immediate results. Ultimately our goal is to
continually improve processes to obtain professional
credit with immediate tracking of activities to
regulatory bodies. Other SMRT online resources such
as video home studies from our endless body of
recorded presentations and live educational sessions
will continue to grow and offer a diverse range of
professional credit opportunities.
Whilst the MR technologist list serve has been a
lasting legacy of the MR community, the SMRT
Facebook page is growing at a strong rate and adding
many dimensions to how we communicate as well as
what we are discussing. Twitter has made a steady
start. With a very diverse membership growing across
various new regions, many of us have embraced this
technology whilst others have been not as
enthusiastic. Whilst this can be for many
cultural/generational reasons, this diversity is
important in both reaching the full potential in
membership as well as to give SMRT members every
opportunity to connect to our community. This is
also another opportunity for SMRT members to give
feedback and connect with our leadership.
It is still quite early in our use of these social
media options and its value/uses are still evolving.
Essentially it's the people who connect who will
drive its evolution, and we hope to further
integrate the SMRT web page directly with the
hundreds of valuable online resources we offer for
our membership and potential members. I encourage
everyone to like our Facebook page as well as
encourage your fellow MRI colleagues. We are
currently heading towards 650 likes which is
encouraging, however our steady rate of growth will
hopefully double this number over the next year. |
