This weekend's Resident and Fellow Section (RFS) meeting in Washington, DC, offers two days of focused content for radiology trainees, including an RFS first: dual content tracks for first-time and repeat attendees. Best of all, it's free for residents and fellows.
The RFS meeting is part of the 2013 American College of Radiology (ACR) Annual Meeting and Chapter Leadership Conference (AMCLC) and will be held May 4 and 5 at the Washington DC Hilton. Membership is free for radiology residents and fellows, said RFS chair Dr. Matthew Hawkins.
Attendees can show up Saturday morning and register onsite, and they're also encouraged to stay for the rest of AMCLC, which continues through May 7. Beyond his ACR duties, Hawkins is a radiology fellow at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.
Much of the RFS meeting is devoted to "introducing residents to some of the nonclinical components of our profession," while the ACR portion focuses on conducting the college's business, Hawkins said.
"It's a nice translational experience for residents and fellows if it's their first time to get introduced to the concepts and then see those concepts being enacted," he said.
Meeting highlights
Firsts for the weekend confab include a Saturday morning point-counterpoint debate on healthcare's fee-for-service model -- and the effects on radiology of its eventual demise. Hawkins will face off against Dr. Neil Lall in the session, which will be hosted by Dr. Saurabh Jha, who has pioneered a debate-based approach to radiology training.
In addition, this year's program will offer two tracks -- one for first-time attendees and one for repeat attendees -- to ensure that people can come back and get substantially different content the second time around.
Not to be missed is Dr. Alexander Norbash's Radiology Leadership Institute minicourse on practice strategy, Hawkins said. Norbash, a professor of radiology at Boston University Medical Center, will likely offer advice on radiology groups moving beyond fee for service and "into the new era of shared-savings reimbursement and, obviously, profitable business plans," he said.
Also during the weekend, Dr. Arun Krishnaraj will introduce the ACR's Commission for Women and Diversity, and Dr. Lawrence Muroff will talk about "what you didn't learn in residency," Hawkins said.
All of this is in line with ACR's focus on the practice side of radiology, which Hawkins said will serve residents well as they move from training to professional practice.
More information on the RFS meeting is available here.
