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By Diane Mayo, RT(R)(CT), FASRT
I’m very excited to be able to attend this year’s AHRA Annual Meeting as one of the Annual Meeting Scholarship winners. I have only had the opportunity to attend one other Annual Meeting in the past, and that was in 2009 when it was held in Las Vegas, NV. I attended representing the ASRT, but when I was not attending business meetings I was able to attend many of the educational courses. I found the educational portion of this meeting to be very informative and beneficial to my work environment. It was hard to fit in all the sessions I wanted, but I really liked the way many are repeated on two different days, giving me a second chance to attend a particular session that overlapped with another I wanted to attend. The exhibit hall was very informative, and I gained valuable information from a few vendors that we have since incorporated into our department.
About a year and a half ago I was able to attend a one day regional meeting in New Orleans, and earlier this year our leadership group in diagnostic imaging at St. Dominic Hospital put on a one day regional symposium in Jackson, MS. We were very pleased with the assistance that AHRA provided us for this meeting. It was well attended, and from the positive comments we hope to do this again. Our keynote speaker for our symposium, Bill Johnson, was “discovered” by a coworker who attended the 2013 Annual Meeting. He was so impressed with Bill’s message that we had him come in not only for this meeting but to speak to our entire hospital leadership team. I am also bringing him back to Mississippi this fall to speak at our state annual meeting, which is mostly attended by students. His message is powerful, and it’s going to be great for our students to listen and learn from him in order to provide better patient care.
So thank you to the AHRA Education Foundation and sponsors for providing the Annual Meeting Scholarship and for awarding one to me this year. I’m still fairly new to AHRA but am learning so much from Radiology Management and the member forum. This is information that is helping me with my work.
I hope to make many new AHRA friends in DC. See ya there!
What was the first Annual Meeting you ever attended? Send your story to Kerri Hart-Morris (khartmorris@ahraonline.org), and it could be published here too!
Diane Mayo, RT(R)(CT), FASRT is the quality assurance coordinator at St. Dominic’s Hospital in Jackson, MS. She can be reached at dmayo@stdom.com.
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