Goals and Hopes for 2018

By Angelic P. Bush, MSRS, CRA, RT, FAHRA

Happy New Year, AHRA! I hope each of you were able to ring in 2018 with a bang!

This is a wonderful time of year full of new beginnings, fresh ideas, and hope. I think that is what I love about the start of a new year the most: the hope that fills us. When you have just gone through 12 months of what you thought was the hardest year of your life, or when the world bogs you down with timelines, deadlines, projects, and quotas, getting that injection of hope rejuvenates you. It reminds you that old can become new, that friends are always there for you, and that no matter what life brings, the sun rises again tomorrow.

Your Board of Directors has been busy this past year bringing that same life and energy to our many association initiatives and strategies. Did you know that we just approved 5 new active duty AHRA member scholarships? The AHRA Education Foundation will be granting 3 Osborn Scholarships (1 for the Spring Conference and 2 for the Annual Meeting) and 2 Ed Yoder Memorial Scholarships specifically for active duty AHRA members. Click here for more information. We are also already well on the way to meeting our Defining our Future campaign goal of $3,000,000, and we have finalized where our 2020 Annual Meeting will be held: BOSTON!

Mark Feeley, 2018 Annual Meeting Design Team Chair, and the rest of the Annual Meeting Design Team just went through the laborious process of individually reviewing well over a hundred speaker submissions for AHRA 2018 and pulled together one of the most diverse and intense speaker selections I have seen in some time. If you want finance and coding, it’s there; if you want lean and efficiency, it’s there; if you want cardiac and cardiovascular imaging, it’s there! I am so proud of them. They not only looked at each speaker submission on its own merit, but they listened to what you, our members, said you wanted to see in this year’s conference. They took to heart every word of our member survey responses and filtered the submissions through the lens of your interests first. Isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing? Making these conferences about you!

And that is just the beginning. Tom Wall, chair of the Membership Committee, and his team have organized, strategized, and implemented a plan to help us reach our goal of an all-time high of 6,000 members this year! If you know anything about Tom it is that he is unconventional, energetic, and passionate about the AHRA. When he puts his mind to something, stand out of his way; nothing stops him!

Finally, Cathy Story, Chair of the AHRA Education Foundation (EF) Board of Directors, is working along with the rest of the EF board and their team of volunteers to make our 2018 Annual Appeal to members the most successful yet. You may not know this, but before any vendor sponsors our campaigns (the ones that allow the AHRA to build educational programs that foster the cultivation of the leaders of tomorrow), we are often asked, “How have your members helped themselves?” It is the contributions of our own members that set the pace and potential for future corporate donations. If we do not believe in ourselves and are willing to invest in what we believe in, then what initiative is there for others to so?

I just wanted to say thank you to all of our AHRA HEROES for following their passions for imaging leadership and making 2018 a monumental year for our association. You are the volunteers that fuel our future.

As a final reminder, our Spring Conference is right around the corner, and it is in the beautiful city of New Orleans: bring on the beignets and jazz! Lynn Imel, our Spring Conference Design Team Chair, has worked with the rest of the Spring Conference Design Team to put together an event that will keep us all engaged from start to finish. Be sure to sign yourself and your teams up today!

Angelic P. Bush, MSRS, CRA, RT, FAHRA is the 2017-2018 president of the AHRA Board of Directors. She works at Baylor Scott & White-Round Rock in Round Rock, TX and can be reached at bushangelic@gmail.com.