ACR 2016, the annual meeting of the American College of Radiology (ACR), is less than one month away.

Cheri L. Canon, MD, ACR 2016 program chair, spoke with RadiologyBusiness.com about the upcoming meeting, which begins May 15 in Washington, D.C. Canon shared her thoughts on what makes this year’s gathering unique and provided first-time attendees with some helpful tips.

What will be different about this year’s annual meeting? What will set it apart from previous meetings?

Cheri L. Canon, MD: What’s really unique about this meeting is, although there is some clinical content, it all really focuses on the pillars of ACR. For example, there’s a real preponderance of opportunities around economics and advocacy as well as quality and safety. And I think the one people are particular drawn to is the leadership content of the meeting, which is put on by the Radiology Leadership Institute.

So really, there’s something for everyone. Not just for radiologists, but for the radiation oncologists, the medical physicists. And last year, we had a specific track for our resident and fellows, which we’re having again, but we’re also adding a track for our young physicians. That will actually be new this year.

There are two speakers I wanted to ask you about: Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, who is scheduled to give the keynote address, and patient advocate Andy DeLaO, who is giving the annual Moreton Lecture. What will they bring to ACR 2016?

I’m really excited about these two. Emanuel was one of the main architects of healthcare reform and the Affordable Care Act, so we hope to get his insight on radiology’s role in the new healthcare environment and how we can better serve our patients. He’s fairly controversial, particularly in radiology, so what we want to hear from his perspective is how we can improve our service and really have a value-added contribution to the healthcare team and our patients. I’m hoping he will lay the roadmap of that for us.

With the other speaker, Andy DeLaO, there is a similar theme. We want to learn how to better care for our patients, and he has a remarkable record of patient-centric care, particularly patients with cancer. We’re looking for some innovative insights on how to really think about things differently as we move forward, not only to provide better care for the patient, but more efficient care.

This is the first year the annual meeting has included a development “hackathon,” which sounds like something developers will certainly get excited about. Can you share your thoughts on this new event?

This is something completely new. I’ll have to be honest about it ... before this discussion, I didn’t even know what a hackathon was. Fortunately, some of the people on the planning committee have very innovative ideas and brought this idea to the front. And now that I’ve learned more about it, I’m really excited about it.

What I really like about this is the ACR’s mission has always been advocacy, and this will give us a much better link with patient advocacy groups, which is key. I think this will be interesting and hopefully bring together a different group of individuals, maybe some of our younger professionals.

And I think your point is well taken—this has the opportunity to really grow into something big. This year is kind of a pilot, but we’re going to kind of see what happens and where we can go with it.

Do you have any advice for first-time attendees? Something to bring? Something they absolutely can’t miss?

The first thing to note is that the meeting is large. It can be a little overwhelming, and in some of the sessions where there is discussion about specific resolutions, it can seem really formal and even a little intimidating. It’s really important for first-time attendees to realize they are welcome at those sessions to observe. They’re not closed sessions, and I think some people misunderstand that just because of the formality of those sessions.

Two, because it’s such a complex meeting, I urge people to look at some of the meeting content and the program schedule in advance so they have some idea of what they want to do.

It’s great, because we actually have a meeting app, and this year, we’ve added some significant improvements to that app. So I think that’s very helpful for attendees to use to navigate through the different sessions. It’s not a meeting to just show up and wing it. I think you need to be a little bit thoughtful about it.

The other thing is, one of the big benefits of this meeting is networking. This meeting covers all radiology professionals and it’s an opportunity to network with a lot of people you might otherwise not have the opportunity to meet, especially if you only attend your subspecialty meetings. So I think it’s a really neat opportunity to meet people, to learn from them, to maybe establish some mentoring relationships. I think people should take advantage of the social events and even the downtime between meetings. I think that is enormously valuable.

And this is a chance to meet and spend some significant time with the college leadership. These are the people paving the direction for our profession, and you have the opportunity to interact with them, ask them questions, and, even more importantly, share your opinion about where you think things need to go or challenges your practice is experiencing.

Is there anything else about ACR 2016 you’d like to share?  

I think an important thing to emphasize is the business and leadership opportunities, particularly for our more junior attendees and trainee attendees. These are really unique opportunities that they may not be exposed to, and especially for future practice leaders and department chairs, this allows a foundation of leadership development which, unfortunately, most of the rest of us really didn’t have. We had more on-the-job learning, which is not ideal, particularly in the current environment that is changing so rapidly.

We need to be more thoughtful about the direction of our career and our profession, and I think this meeting provides those opportunities.

This text was edited for space and clarity. More information about the application Canon mentioned can be found here.