Newsletter
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF PHY SICISTS IN MEDICIN E VOLUME 32 NO. 5
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007
AAPM President’s Column
Mary K. Martel UT MD Anderson Cancer Center
Minneapolis and the Annual Meeting
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inneapolis has been on our minds lately because of the recent bridge collapse in the Twin Cities. The AAPM expresses its solidarity with its members in Minnesota following this tragedy, and Russ Ritenour, chairman of the Board and a Minnesota resident, has personally contacted AAPM members in Minnesota. The 49th annual meeting in Minneapolis was a great success (and not just because it was my presidential year!), due in large part to the efforts of a number of people, among them: Scientific Program Co-Directors Charlie Ma and Chris Shaw, Education Program co-Directors Indrin Chetty and Perry Sprawls, Professional Program co-directors Mike Herman and Bruce Gerbi, Education Program Subcommittee
Chair Mark Rzeszotarski, Scientific Program Subcommittee Chairs Gary Ezzell and Andrew Maidment, Therapy Track organizer Tom Bortfeld, the Meeting Coordination Committee Chair Melissa Martin, the Local Arrangements Committee, including the chair, Richard Geise, and the entire AAPM HQ staff. I was the scientific program director several years ago, and I know first-hand that many people work tirelessly nearly all year round to ensure the meeting is of high quality, and runs smoothly. Besides the happenings taking place in the convention center, we have fond memories of: the Twins beating the Angels at the Metrodome, the fireworks over the mighty Mississippi marking the end of the Aquatennial, the outdoor cafes along Nicollet Mall, lawn bowling at Britt’s, the afterconcert party with Nickelback, meeting friends on Nicollet Island at the Night-out event, and the highlight of the meeting, members of Board and Excom doin’ a little logrolling …and subsequent swimming [video available]. Town Hall meeting The AAPM new member symposium (combined with “Meet the Experts”) was well attended this year, perhaps because our new members were able to have access to some legends (and legends-inthe making) in our field. New to the annual meeting this year was the Town Hall meeting. This
meeting event was proposed by the Board, via a motion by Chris Serago at last summer’s Board meeting, in order to give members face-toface access to the Board in a public meeting. Though the Town Hall meeting was in the same time slot as the New Member symposium of the previous day, the attendance was not quite as good. Thirty-some Board members did attend and perched on stools at the front of the room. And for a time, the Board members may have outnumbered the audience members 2 to 1. Questions from the audience were slow to come for the first half of the meeting, but picked up in number and relative importance until it was time for the Annual Business Meeting. For next year, we may need to change the format a bit to facilitate participation, such as having the Town Hall meeting at the beginning of the annual TABLE OF CONTENTS President Elect’s Column Executive Director’s Column Editor’s Column Education Council Report Science Council Report Professional Council Report CAMPEP News Leg. & Reg. Affairs Coolidge Award Speech ACR Accreditation FAQS Partners in Physics update Health Policy/Economics Persons in the News
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