From the Chair: The View from Here - SIIM News Summer 2008

Bradley J. Erickson, MD, PhD
Chair

I am honored to serve as chair of the Society for Imaging Informatics in Medicine for the coming 2 years, and gratified by the work of my predecessors in this post who have laid the groundwork for the changes ahead. I would especially like to thank Curt Langlotz, the outgoing chair, and outgoing Board members Elizabeth Krupinski and David Piraino for their leadership and insight, guiding the Society in recent years. I also want to thank the Program Committee members who have done most of the ‘heavy lifting’ in making the Annual Meeting the success it is. The SIIM staff continue to exceed expectations and bring a new level of excellence to SIIM.

SIIM also could not host the programs it does without the support of its corporate members, exhibitors, sponsors, and advertisers. Their participation supports a wide variety of educational and scientific programming and enables SIIM to offer its membership new programs, publications, and products. Please join me in thanking them.

A New View

Every year, my family goes skiing for spring break. One of the wonderful parts of skiing is riding the lift to the top of the mountain and taking time to enjoy the view. Sometimes we are on the highest hill in the area, and the feeling is sensational. Other times, we are on a shoulder hill, and can see the other higher hills nearby. Sometimes we set a plan to conquer those, and other times, we decide that weather or my limited skiing skills mean that the hill we are on is the right one.

I think SIIM is in a similar situation. Over the past decade, prior leaders have shepherded the society through dramatic growth and a name change to reflect the society’s new, expanded focus. In the past three years, that dramatic growth has leveled off and we are now wondering if we should develop a plan to climb a bigger hill—to expand the society membership further—or whether the current size is a good and comfortable size.

At the recent SIIM business meeting in Seattle, I laid my cards on the table, indicating that I believe we should set our sights on a higher goal. Having a larger number of members, per se, is not my primary goal. Rather, building a more robust society, with broader coverage of the field of imaging informatics, more involvement in research and education of imaging informatics professionals, and more engagement of medical imagers in other parts of the globe, should be our goal.

I did not come to this conclusion lightly. Setting these goals does entail risks. First, some current members may feel disenfranchised. To manage this risk, it will be critical to make sure that all members understand that they can and should play a role in the plan. Another risk is that having an influx of new members with a different profile will likely change the flavor of the annual meeting. That is actually part of the goal, but we must be sure to engage all so that they are comfortable with the changes.

I think the recent SIIM 2008 annual meeting in Seattle actually indicates we have already started to climb the next peak. This year’s meeting continued the trend of more content from specialties beyond radiology. I was also quite surprised when more than one attendee approached me and introduced themselves—they were ‘card carrying informaticists’! Their work did not involve imaging, but they saw that what SIIM had to offer was going to impact non-imaging areas of medical informatics. Finally, a review of the scientific content of the meeting also reveals continued improvement in the quality and breadth of coverage of imaging informatics topics.

Indeed, the journey has already begun. I hope that instills excitement in you. There are many opportunities open to SIIM members.

I encourage all members to consider submitting a scientific poster or presentation for next year’s meeting. If you haven’t done that before, I would suggest you think of topics you heard where you thought to yourself ‘We did something like that, but I think …” or “That is interesting—we tried that but that wasn’t what we saw…” These thoughts are the start of a scientific presentation.

For others, this is a step too big. I encourage you to continue to remain active in SIIM—maintain your contacts and membership in SIIM, and perhaps look into joining a committee.

I am still early in my tenure as chair, and perhaps my goal is too ambitious, but I hope to enlist your aid in keeping SIIM the unquestioned authoritative society on imaging informatics in medicine. One person can’t make that happen, nor can a handful of board members and committee chairs. It will ultimately depend on a membership that gets excited about the role they can play in making the practice of medicine and the care of patients better because of how they do their work, and how they share that knowledge through organizations like SIIM.

Dr. Erickson is a Professor in the Department of Radiology at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester.