AAPM Newsletter | July/August 2021 Vo l u m e 4 6 , N o . 4
EXPLORING OUR FUTURE AT THE UPCOMING ANNUAL MEETING: “CREATIVE SCIENCE. ADVANCING MEDICINE." P R E S I D E N T ’ S R E P O R T J a m e s T. D o b b i n s I I I , P h D | D u k e U n i v e r s i t y M e d i c a l C e n t e r
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ummer is upon us. As we look forward to the longer days and warmer weather ahead, we can pause and think of the things that this new season represents. For those in educational programs, another year of study has come to a successful conclusion. Some of you have completed your study and moved on to residencies, PhD programs, or a new job. For our graduates, this time of year represents the excitement of new beginnings.
Email: james.dobbins@duke.edu
This new season also represents a glimmer of hope that the worst of the pandemic is behind us as an increasing number around the world are now fully vaccinated. This year has been difficult in many ways, with many of us facing the challenge of either clinical work in a stressful environment or the strange cadence and isolation of work-from-home with the need to handle virtual schooling for children as well as our jobs. And of course, many have experienced illness or have lost someone close to them, and this year has been immeasurably hard for them. This has been a tough year overall and I am thankful for the hope that we can perhaps return to a greater degree of normalcy this summer. Summertime also means that the Annual Meeting will soon be here. I want to share a few exciting things that will take place at this summer’s meeting. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Creative Science. Advancing Medicine.” This theme was chosen to highlight the important role that we as physicists have played in inventing and developing much of modern medicine over the past decades, and also the challenge of finding the new ways in which physics will significantly impact medicine in the future. Medicine is undergoing significant changes as it becomes more personalized, prospective, molecular, and data-driven. These are all important and substantial changes, with exciting possibilities for improved diagnostics and therapeutics. It will be important for us to find the best way for physics to continue to lead in this new environment. Finding new areas of impact will require that we as a field embrace the creativity that has characterized us over the past century, though in new and expanding ways. The theme of this year’s President’s Symposium is “The importance of creativity in science,” which builds on this idea of finding our new path. Bruce Tromberg, PhD, Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) will be our keynote speaker, and he will explore ways in which creativity will be needed in the era of new medicine, and will discuss areas in which NIH sees the greatest opportunity for creative science. We will www.aapm.org | 5