Meeting Minutes

Oct. 17, 2004 Executive Committee Meeting

Present: Drs. Edward Melian, Abraham Dachman, Carl Kalbhen, Nandita Guha-Thakura, John Hibbeln, Margaret Stull, Edward Michals, Davide Bova, Thomas Anderson, Kate Feinstein and Michael Racenstein

The meeting was called to order at 4:15 PM at The 500 Club of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center

APPROVAL OF MINUTES:
The minutes from the April 15, 2004 meeting were approved.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT:
Dr. Melian thanked Dr. Racenstein for his hard and effective work as CRS President last year. He summarized the Welcome Letter he wrote for this year’s CRS season, in which the Society’s goals as originally conceived in 1937 are restated. Dr. Melian mentioned that he received a phone call earlier in the day from Dr. Ellen Mendelson, who had just been made aware of a possible pending reimbursement denial by Blue Cross/Blue Shield involving breast imaging. The committee of Drs. Racenstein, Mendelson, Mintzer and Hendrick that went to Blue Cross/Blue Shield last spring to help reinstate reimbursement for digital mammography may need to be recovened. Dr. Melian expressed concern with the relatively poor attendance at the IRS Educational Symposium held in September, particularly by members of the CRS Executive Committee. Dr. Melian also summarized the finances of the CRS during his prior two years as Secretary/Treasurer. Mostly because of the change in venue to Rush and greater corporate sponsorship of the meetings, the Society’s finances improved by more than $20,000 during this time.

RESIDENT SECTION REPORT:
Dr. Guha-Thakurta stated that tonight’s Resident Section speaker, Dr. Dianna Bardo, will give a talk on “Prenatal and Early Postnatal Brain Disease”, and that her session will be sponsored by GE Healthcare. GE generously came through at the last minute when the planned sponsor became unavailable, and GE has also expressed an interest in sponsoring future Resident Sections. W.L. Gore will be sponsoring the November Resident Section, and good sponsorship of the Resident Sections is expected throughout the season.

PROGRAM COMMITTEE REPORT:
Dr. Dachman gave the list of speakers for tonight’s Breakout Sessions. Tonight is one of two sessions this CRS season for which there will be five, rather than the usual four, Breakout Sessions. The effects of this additional session will be discussed at the next Executive Committee meeting. Dr. Dachman was pleased to announce that, in addition to some of the regular Breakout Session speakers and institutions, Dr. Mark Piasaneschi from Cook County Hospital will be giving tonight’s Multimodality Session. Dr. Bruce Hillman will be the main speaker for tonight’s Scientific Session, and the ACR is generously sponsoring his lecture. Dr. Dachman also reported that the Chicago Medical Society’s Annual Midwest Clinical Conference will not have a Radiology Session this year.

GOLF OUTING REPORT:
The number of participating golfers, particularly radiologists, continues to decrease when compared with years past. The start of this year’s outing was also delayed for several hours because of inclement weather, and the wet course conditions were used by some golfers to explain their poor play. Financially, however, this year’s Golf Outing was a success. There was a net loss of only $21, this representing a significant improvement from the past several years. The possibility of combining future CRS Golf Outings with the IRS Educational Symposium was raised. Dr. Kalbhen will contact Dr. Karna, Dr. Mintzer and Mr. Hedland for their thoughts on this idea and report back to the Executive Committee.

SECRETARY/TREASURER REPORT:
The financial report from July to September of 2004 was reviewed and met with approval from the group. The Society’s assets as of September 30, 2004 were more than $10,000 above the level they were at the same time last year.

WEBSITE REPORT:
Dr. Kalbhen reiterated a previous suggestion to delete the individual email addresses from the CRS website, as the listing of these addresses has resulted in large volumes of spam being sent to these individuals. A single informational email address will be created which will be regularly checked by Dr. Kalbhen.

NEW BUSINESS:
Dr. Racenstein reported that he recently attended a meeting of the American College of Surgeons. Diagnostic Imaging was an integral part of this meeting, with breast surgeons in particular told that they need to personally perform breast imaging if they wish to remain active in the practice of breast surgery. This prompted a lively discussion, including the recognized need for radiologists to maintain the highest standards of quality when faced with such competition.

The meeting was adjourned at 5:13 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Carl Kalbhen, MD
Secretary/Treasurer

Dinner was served to 71 people. Following dinner, Dr. Melian presented Dr. Racenstein with a plaque commemorating his year as CRS President. Dr. Eric Russell then introduced Dr. Bruce Hillman who gave a talk entitled, “The Quality of Medical Imaging”.

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