Let’s all take a minute to remember the reason for the season of Thanksgiving. This time of year isn’t meant to be spent scouring the internet for deals on early Christmas presents. This time of year isn’t meant for standing in lines in the cold outside of Walmart to get 50% off a new TV. This time of year is meant to be spent with family and friend; giving thanks for all the wonderful things in our lives. 

This holiday season though, it’s also the time to start planning your continuing medical education conferences or CME symposiums for CT for the upcoming year. If you register before the end of 2015, you can end up saving a lot of money with early-bird registration. It can be a challenge to get your radiology team to plan six months out, but the cost savings are significant.

Most of you are probably familiar with the adorable and yet elusive Where’s Waldo character, from the children’s books where you have to search for him in a crowd of people. Dr. Geoffrey Rubin makes this apt comparison, discussing how searching for both Waldo and lung nodules during a dynamic lung CT interpretation can be equally challenging.

Many factors have driven radiology to the sidelines when it comes to providing direct, quality patient care. Chief among these is the fact that, with the advent of PACS, imaging specialists can be seen by referring providers and hospital administrators as interchangeable, offering the same services with relatively little difference in quality.

It was with great interest that I watched a recent presentation by Geoffrey D. Rubin, MD, MBA, FACR, professor of radiology and bioengineering at Duke University, in which Rubin introduced the idea of incorporating concepts from Uber’s successful ride-sharing service into radiology. Doing so, noted Rubin, would introduce positives and negatives into the equation, but in the end could help to bolster the case for direct radiologist involvement in patient care.

After 17 years, we’re ramping up our groove as the world’s top CT symposium. Our rich history as the most well-attended continuing medical education meeting on computed tomography is built on a foundation of innovations in CT scanning manifest over 1800 lectures delivered by the world’s brightest minds in radiology. Every year we reflect on the success of our meetings and ask how we can improve, offer better CME resources and provide an even stronger experience the next year.

Malpractice risk is part of practicing medicine, and although radiologists are less likely than most physicians to be hit with malpractice claims, radiologists still have a 50% likelihood of being sued by the time they turn 60.But there are concrete ways to minimize the risk, according to Dr. Jeffrey Mendel of Tufts University School of Medicine, who spoke on the topic at last month's International Symposium on Multidetector-Row CT.

"Only the mediocre are at their best every day," Mendel said. "And since none of us are mediocre, none of us will be at our best all the time, so we have to build systems into our practices to keep us performing at the highest level."