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A M E R I C A N A S S O C I AT I O N O F P H Y S I C I S T S I N M E D I C I N E We advance the science, education and professional practice of medical physics
AAPM Column VOLUME President’s 35 NO. 4
JULY/AUGUST 2010
AAPM President’s Column Michael G. Herman, Mayo Clinic
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his year continues to provide activity for AAPM and for medical physics. In this column I would like to touch on recent interactions AAPM has had with NRC and FDA, cooperative safety initiatives, 2012/2014 growing pains and the dues increase.
AAPM Dues Increase – It has been a number of years since AAPM increased dues. The previous Board of Directors proposed increase was defeated in 2008 by the first vote of the entire membership instead of a vote of the members in attendance at the Annual Business meeting. We did not communicate the real needs for increased funding clearly. Since that time, AAPM has reduced expenses and worked to achieve as many established goals and requested activities as possible. As many of you know, especially if you serve on a committee or task group, we had to reduce funding to many activities across all councils in 2009 and 2010. While we continue to get things done, it is at a slower pace and without some support that we would have liked to have. Our treasurer will outline more of this in specific detail in her column. My request to you is to support the modest dues increase of $50 proposed, along with a cost of living adjustment in future years, so we don’t fall behind again. I encourage you to become more involved and see how and where the money is being spent and to help shape the direction of the organization and profession you participate in. This increase really is important to the continuing function and success of the Included in this issue: AAPM to meet our Mission to advance the science, education and professional practice of medical physics. Chair of the Board p. 4 NRC and FDA - In early June President Elect Tony Seibert, GRAC chair Doug Pfeiffer and I visited NRC headquarters in Washington. Lynne Fairobent, our government and regulatory affairs staff setup these meetings for direct communication between AAPM and NRC on topics relevant to medical physicists. We met with Chairman Jaczko, commissioners Magwood and Ostendorff and Deputy Executive Director Michael Weber. While we submitted a packet of material with multiple points, in our ~25 minute meetings, we made the following points consistently: we wished to know when action was going to be taken to remedy the problem with Part 35 rule making for credentialing medical physicists. NRC began to recognize the ABR certification process as sufficient to allow a diplomate to be recognized as an AMP or RSO in October 2005. NRC did not recognize individuals who were certified prior to this date if they were not already acting as AMP or RSO. AAPM petitioned NRC to change this in 2006 and while NRC has recognized the hardship this has caused, still expects the remedy process to take more (years) time. We urged the commissioners
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