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AAPM Column VOLUME President’s 37 NO. 2
MARCH/APRIL 2012
AAPM President’s Column Gary A. Ezzell, Mayo Clinic Scottsdale
A
s I write this column we are five weeks out from AAPM's inaugural Spring Clinical Meeting. David Hintenlang has led the program development, along with Bob Pooley, Joann Prisciandaro, Jessica Clements, Brian Wang, and Bill Geiser. The meeting offers a number of opportunities for continuing education, including thirteen SAMS sessions, and is really focused on serving the needs of practicing clinical physicists. The organizers have put together an excellent program that accomplishes that goal, and I look forward to being there. I will be particularly interested in the Saturday morning symposium on Patient Safety & Medical Error Prevention presented by David Hintenlang and Chris Serago. Our profession has been deepening its understanding of how to prevent errors by identifying and responding to early warnings of systems and behaviors that make errors more likely. It is important for all of us to put these lessons into practice in our own clinics, learning and adapting as we go along. My department initiated a "practice improvement" process last year that captures events in which something went wrong (or almost went wrong), but did not lead to an Included in this issue: actual error in patient treatment. We have changed our procedures in several instances as a result, and are Chair of the Board p. 2 better for it. We are moving now from a paper reporting President Elect p. 4 system to an electronic one that will be easier to use Executive Director p. 5 and analyze. None of this is new stuff; Sasa Mutic and Editor p. 6 p. 7 others have written and presented about such systems for Professional Council p. 10 years. But it takes time and dedicated commitment for E & R Fund Education Council p. 11 changes in practice and culture to become widespread, p. 14 and we medical physicists are often the key leaders to ACR Accreditation Leg. & Reg. Affairs p. 17 make such changes happen. Specialty Meetings I happen to be in Japan this week and have felt the Oversight Subcommittee p. 21 ground shake a couple of times. It was eleven months ABR Trustees Report p. 23 ago that the major quake and tsunami hit, so these little Radiology Safety Case tremblors are reminders to be prepared - big things can of the Fortnight p. 24 happen. This could be a metaphor for the need to pay UNYAAPM Chapter Report p. 25 attention to recurrent small disruptions in the clinic; they Persons in the News p. 27 could be precursors to the "Big One" if left unattended.