Program Information
President's Symposium: The Necessity of Innovation in Medical Physics
J Bayouth1*, J Siewerdsen2*, E Wahl3*, (1) University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, (2) Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore , MD, (3) Premiere Speakers Bureau, Franklin, TN
Presentations
TU-E-BRD-1 Tuesday 1:45PM - 3:45PM Room: Ballroom DThis abstract will not blow you away, but speed-painting presenter Erik Wahl will certainly make a truly unique AAPM symposium that you will not want to miss. Along with clinical director John Bayouth and scientific leader Jeff Siewerdsen, this session will highlight innovation. To avoid being button pushers and irrelevant investigators of yesterday’s science, we must innovate. This is particularly challenging in the changing landscape of declining research funding and healthcare reimbursement.
But all hope is not lost, Medical Physics is a field born out of innovation. As scientists we quickly translated the man-made and natural phenomena of radiation into a tool that could diagnose broken bones, locate foreign objects imbedded within the body, and treat a spectrum of diseases. As hyperbolae surrounding the curative powers of radiation overcame society, physicists continued their systematic pursuit of a fundamental understanding of radiation and applied their knowledge to enable the diagnostic and therapeutic power of this new tool.
Health economics and the decline in research funding have put the Medical Physicist in a precarious position: how do we optimally participate in medical research and advanced patient care in the face of many competing needs? Today's diagnostic imaging and therapeutic approaches are tremendously sophisticated. Researchers and commercial vendors are producing technologies at a remarkable rate; to enable their safe and effective implementation Medical Physicists must work from a fundamental understanding of these technologies. This requires all of us, clinically practicing Medical Physicists, Researchers and Educators alike, to combine our training in scientific methods with innovation.
Innovation is the key to our past, a necessity for our contemporary challenges, and critical for the future of Medical Physics. The keynote speakers for the 2014 AAPM Presidential Symposium session will address the way we approach these vitally important technologies for diagnosis and therapy into opportunities to innovate. The speed-painting artist and lecturer Erik Wahl will finish the symposium with a fast-paced and entertaining presentation on embracing the future by creating disruptive innovation strategies.
Learning Objectives:
1. Identify connection between Medical Physics and Innovation.
2. Understand how Innovation enables Clinical Medical Physicists to implement novel technologies.
3. Learn how innovative Medical Physics solutions can address significant and relevant challenges in science.
4. Become inspired to pursue a new scientific understanding, positive change in clinical practice, and benefit to patients.
Handouts
- 90-25599-344462-102796.pdf (J Bayouth)
- 90-25600-344462-102615.pdf (J Siewerdsen)
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