ACR Resident and Fellow Section E-News

IN THIS ISSUE

* 17th Annual RFS Meeting and 86th AMCLC
* "Getting Started" Handbook
* Welcome Your New 2009-2010 RFS Executive Committee
* RFS Web site Update
* Call to Action: Heart of Radiology
* 2009-2010 ACR Fellowships
* MRI Teaching File - Submit Cases, Earn Money!
* Submit Your Images for RadiologyInfo and Win $100

17th Annual RFS Meeting and 86th AMCLC

A record number (185) of residents and fellows from across the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico traveled to D.C. last month to participate in another successful Resident and Fellow Section (RFS) Meeting held in conjunction with the ACR Annual Meeting and Chapter Leadership Conference (AMCLC). The RFS meeting took place over the opening weekend allowing members in training to attend sessions tailored to their needs before being able to experience and participate in the main ACR Council meeting. The RFS was fortunate to be joined by many leaders and visionaries in the field including Dr. James Thrall, Chair of the ACR's Board of Chancellors, Dr. Richard Gunderman, inspiring speaker on leadership topics, and Dr. William Thorwarth, former president of ACR, among others. Talks ranged from presentations by Dr. N. Reed Dunnick, president of the American Board of Radiology (ABR), on the changes to the board examinations, to entertaining presentations on how to go about navigating the job search by Drs. Richard Duszak and Joe Stavas. This year's hot topics included the future of radiology, the importance of community service, and emerging challenges to maintaining our field. For more information on the AMCLC visit the ACR RFS Web site.

"Getting Started" Handbook

Making the transition from the clinical internship year to the first year of radiology training can be difficult. Many of the skills honed during the intern year are not directly applicable to radiology. Additionally there are very few comprehensive resources available describing such disparate but common issues faced by new trainees such as how should dictations be structured, what contrast agent should I administer and how do I protocol a study? Enter another handbook from the RFS, "Getting Started: A Guide to Year One of Radiology Residency". This guide, available later this month, is the culmination of the work of the 2008-09 RFS Membership and Executive Committees. The purpose of the guide is to fill a void and offer assistance in the first year of radiology residency. This excellent resource will be available online at http://rfs.acr.org. You may submit feedback by e-mail to rfs@acr.org.

Welcome Your New 2009-2010 RFS Executive Committee

The RFS Executive Committee (EC) is a group of elected officers that plan and oversee the activities of the RFS. The RFS EC represents residents and fellows within the ACR and among other specialty organizations, helping to coordinate responses to events and issues that affect trainees. Your elected representatives for this year include some familiar faces as well as a group of new, energetic young trainees who are eager to serve as your advocates. Once again this year the EC also includes an appointed representative from radiation oncology to ensure that this group of trainees, who are also members of the ACR, has a voice within the RFS. To find out who your new officers are, please visit the RFS Web site.

RFS Web site Update

The RFS website is undergoing a complete overhaul! In order to stay current and fresh, the new homepage is now completely flash driven and has a more sleek and intuitive layout. The "child" pages have also been updated to be more uniform with the opening splash page. Please take the time to visit our site and take advantage of the numerous trainee-driven and trainee-focused resources that are available for FREE on the site. We challenge you to find another single resource that better serves members in training in the field of radiology. If there are any suggestions or gaps you see in our site, please contact us at rfs@acr.org.

Call to Action: Heart of Radiology

Are you just in this for the money? Do you care about your patients? Do you participate in your communities? Unfortunately many of these questions are raised by our colleagues in medicine. Due to our unique working environments and the current reimbursement structure, many in the larger house of medicine view us as cold and detached from what they believe doctors should be and who they should represent. Let's shatter these misconceptions and begin to dispel many of the myths that surround us. How do we do that? By embracing "The Heart of Radiology" campaign, further described in the February JACR Residents' and Fellows' column (ACR member log-in required), and discussed at the 2009 RFS meeting. The campaign is a grassroots initiative tailored to the needs of your communities to reach out and connect with our neighbors and offer assistance where needed. This concerted effort falling under the umbrella of the ACR RFS will begin the journey to change the way we are viewed and better align public perception with reality. E-mail the RFS EC and share your experiences with us. We would like to feature a different program each month on our Web site to demonstrate how this campaign is being implemented. While we know time is often limited during residency, campaigns such as this can feed the soul by rekindling what drew us to medicine in the first place.

2009-2010 ACR Fellowships

We would like to extend congratulations to Christopher Roth, M.D. (Duke University Medical Center), the recipient of the 2009-2010 E. Stephen Amis, Jr., M.D. Fellowship in Quality and Safety.

Additional recipients of ACR Fellowships have not yet been selected but will be announced in future editions of the E-News.

Please note that the J.T. Rutherford Government Relations Fellowship has been suspended for the 2009-2010 academic year. The ACR hopes to continue this program for the next academic year. If you have submitted an application it will be kept on file for future consideration. Please contact Melody Ballesteros at mballesteros@acr.org or (800) 227-5463 ext. 4547 with any questions.

Visit the RFS Web site for more information on all of the available ACR Fellowships.

MRI Teaching File - Submit Cases, Earn Money!

The MRI Teaching File serves as an educational resource for residents and fellows who want to hone their skills in the exploding field of MR imaging. While the Body, MSK, and Cardiac cases have grown to substantial numbers, we are still in need of more good Breast cases. Rather than spend an extra night away from family and friends moonlighting, why not submit a case and make some cash while contributing to the collective education of your peers. Submission requirements are available on the RFS Web site.

Submit Your Images for RadiologyInfo and Win $100

Residents, fellows, physics students and medical students are invited to submit their images and videos to the RadiologyInfo™ Outstanding Image contest. Winning images-with acknowledgement of the contributors-will illustrate existing pages of RadiologyInfo.org, the RSNA and ACR online resource for patients, which provides information on more than 100 exams and procedures. Randomly selected contributors also receive a $100 Amazon gift card. Click here to read more and enter the contest.