Ohio was well represented this year at the American Society of Radiologic Technologists meeting on June 21st -24th in Las Vegas, Nevada. Emma Palmer and Christine Gialousis were the voting Ohio Delegates. Other Ohio Members in attendance were Kristin Seitz, MRI Chapter delegate; Heather Moore, Education chapter delegate; Tiffany Roman, Radiography Chapter delegate; Ryan Smith, Nuclear Medicine Chapter delegate; Jessica Bates- ASRT Student Leader; Allison Hermance-Moore- ASRT Student Leader; Nina Kowalczyk-ASRT Fellow; Tricia Leggett, inducted as newest ASRT Fellow; Deb O’Mellan, ASRT Member; and Stefanie Mazal, wife representing Jonathon Mazal-ASRT Honorary Fellow and OSRT Honorary life Member.
The meeting began on Thursday evening with the annual pin exchange where representatives from every state exchange pins to meet and greet each other. We were very excited to be able to pass out the Ohio pins with our new OSRT logo!
Friday morning the first House of Delegates meeting was called to order. This meeting mainly consisted of establishing a quorum, testing the new clicker system for voting, and reviewing and accepting house rules and agenda. There were 100 affiliate delegates present and 57-chapter delegates for a total of 157 voting delegates in the House, out of the 168 seats. The day progressed with the ASRT update provided by ASRT CEO, Sal Martino. Sal offered a variety of information including the ASRT membership totaling about 154,000 members. He reviewed the presidential initiatives from this past year, including the finalization of the ASRT road maps for students and new graduates. The Power of A was also discussed, meaning the power of associations shaping America, and how the ASRT is doing this in their mission. Advocacy was discussed with the ongoing approach from the state level and protecting our profession from encroachment that often attempted in many states by other professions. This is the biggest challenge that we as a profession and the ASRT currently faces.
As for the ASRT Foundation, there were $239,000 in scholarships distributed from the ASRT this past year. The ASRT continues to support affiliates through the Affiliate Development Program as well as the Affiliate Financial Assistance Program. The ASRT is dedicated to making three changes to this program for the upcoming year as an effort to support more affiliates: 1. Remove the alternate delegate requirement during application process; 2. purchase the state affiliate insurance moving forward; and, 3. the minimum amount for smaller states was increased from $4,000 to $5,000. Over the next year, incoming President Melissa Jackowski plans to focus on educating members on importance of research, expanding the ASRT Leadership Academy (on a one-year hiatus to make changes), and increase state advocacy initiatives through educating state members on the importance of societies as the lead advocate.
House Deleggates were reminded that the 2020 meeting will be held in Albuquerque, NM for the 100th anniversary of the ASRT. This will also be the opening the museum expansion. Memorials comments were offered separate from the memorial resolution by Sal Martino for Lynn May, Frances Apple, Becky Kruse, and Jonathon Mazal.
During the open forum on combined dues, the ASRT expressed great concern through the results of the survey that was sent out questioning members on their state and national memberships to our professions societies. Out of 142,000 email surveys sent, 11,701 responses were received. Fifty-two percent (52%) would drop their membership if dues were combined and 80% of the ASRT operating income is member dues. The results were not in favor of combined dues and many members, including Ohio expressed we are in support of the ASRTs opposition. The ASRT will work over the next year to try to get a link for each states website to join, as medical imaging and therapy professionals join their national society.
The ARRT Open Forum was briefly held by their board of trustees and staff. ARRT currently has about 335,000 credentialed professionals. They discussed the new ethics requirement with reporting incident within 30 days. They also encouraged everyone to go to their website to watch videos that have been created to help educate and explain their current processes.
Speaker and Vice-speaker nominations were Beth Weber (speaker) and Joe Witton (Vice Speaker) who were both elected in the 2nd house of delegates to serve another year.
Chapter Chairs were announced based on voting results from the past election. The following Ohio Members will be chapter chairs this upcoming year: Julie Gill- Quality Management chair.
This year there was a Practice Standards Open Forum on the agenda for attendees to discuss the format and combining all of the standards into one document. The ASRT will take the direction to move forward with a draft document for the next House of Delegates meeting, in 2019, and the modality revisions will be on hold for one year while this is being revised. This will allow for general consistencies and more efficiencies when reviewing each modalities practice standards on a rotating basis.
During the Bylaws and Commission Open Forum, there was little discussion about the bylaws changes and the motions that were reviewed. There were no late motions at this meeting. The modalities that had motions for practice standards revisions were MRI, Medical Dosimetry, and Radiologist Assistant. All motions were voted and adopted or non-adopted as suggested by the commission. Three of the 16 motions were withdrawn by the Practice Standards Council. The only bylaws change, since this was not a year for the cycle review, were two date changes, from January to February for motions and amendments to be received to help allow enough time for commission to prepare.
On Friday evening, Tricia Leggett of Bowerston, Ohio was inducted as the newest ASRT Fellow. The ceremony was live on OSRT’s Facebook page, thanks to Christine Gialousis. This was a great recognition of all of the work Tricia has done so far in her profession. What an Honor!
Ohio was recognized for purchasing the most foundation raffle tickets, winning our affiliate $700.00! Way to go Ohio!
I would like to thank the OSRT for this opportunity to serve our state and national at the professional level. This was another successful meeting in the books!
Respectfully submitted,
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 2018 OSRT Affiliate Delegate