President’s Corner #42: From Bullet Points to Blogging

From Bullet Points to Blogging

As anyone who knows me will attest, I do not blog and I do not do Social Media I do emails with bullet points, so writing the President’s Blog is a bit of a stretch. Bear with me.

I do think that many folk wonder what happens within ISMRM between the annual meetings. There is actually a lot of work going on. Now I could just do a load of bullet points, but I will try to write in sentences and put in the odd “and” and “also” to join it all up.

So what is happening? The preparations for Hawaii are ongoing. The site is booked. The office has firmed up on most aspects of the meeting but there are still a few outstanding issues. The AMPC is well underway with the education for Hawaii and is now looking forward to doing education for Cape Town.

But there will always be a massive number of hiccups that the chair and vice-chair of the Annual Meeting Program Committee (Kei Yamada and Katy Keenan) will have to deal with nearer the time. Thanks to both of them and the AMPC for huge amounts of ongoing time and commitment.

Sustainability. This is about making some different decisions. We are confirming that the winter Board meeting will be held virtually—we do not have to fly over 30 people across the world for a 4-hour meeting. Although some members of the Board have to join the meeting at a pretty intolerable time in the middle of the night, this is pretty much no different from the horrendous jet lag of flying to Chicago. And the upside is that they do not have to sit on a plane for over 12 hours, and they get to spend more time at home. We feel this is a good decision for the Society from a sustainability and a financial point of view.

Similarly, we had to decide where to site the January AMPC meeting. The office, led by Anne-Marie Kahrovic, did a very careful analysis of air miles, carbon cost and financial cost comparing a number of sites. The site that scored lowest for all these metrics was chosen, and the committee is now going to Lisbon to finalise the scientific program for Hawaii 2025. This is not great for the members of the committee flying from the other side of the world, but as our membership profile changes, another site may eventually be the prudent choice.

There are a number of other things the office is working on: website, database, abstract management, and of course, the huge numbers of workshops that the Society runs (thank you for the amazing people who step up to organize these).

There are some important dates to remember; please look at the ISMRM website of the various activities that are ongoing. But the most important of these is the ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE DATE — it is 06 November 2024. This will creep up on you at an amazingly fast rate. We also have the call for nominations for the Society Leadership coming up; this closes 07 November. And there is also a call out for members of the ISMRM Ad Hoc Sustainability Advisory Committee (S.A.C.), closing date 10 September. Please do apply and play your part in shaping the Society to meet your needs.

Next time update on the potential Europe Mini-Hub and links with Latin America.

See—no bullet points!!!

Margaret A. Hall-Craggs, M.D.
ISMRM President 2024-2025