The Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting

Abstract

The Registration Committee reports for the Thirty-seventh Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America 2,034 registrations and 150 women. Does that mean that women are something more or less than equivalent? To find the total registration does one count women members as 0.9, women guests as 0.8, wives as 0.5, daughters as 0.25, all others as 0.1? Certainly without the ladies the banquet would be a pretty dull affair, and they lend pulchritude to the distinction of the Carman lecture. So your reporter is going to give them full credit, and report the attendance as 2,184. Because the floor space for meetings and exhibits was the same as it has been in previous years at the Palmer House, and because the circumference of many of the members has gradually been expanding, therefore be it explained that packing fraction was somewhat higher at this meeting than heretofore. As still larger attendance is to be anticipated at future meetings because young radiologists are being produced faster than the old are dying off, the oldsters are urged to reduce. All nonsense to one side, it was a grand meeting. The program, the refresher courses, the commercial and scientific exhibits were all excellent. Everything went off with effortless smoothness, so far as those who had no responsibility could see, which, of course, indicates much preliminary work and forethought by the various committees. There must have been moments of frenzied tension, too, during the meeting, but the work and tension showed only in the smooth operation of the whole, for which we must all extend our sincere thanks to those responsible. The only complaint heard was that there was too much to do. One could not attend all the refresher courses, hear all the papers, see all the exhibits, do one's Christmas shopping and see a couple of shows. Better thus, however, than not to have enough to do. There will always be some conflict in a meeting as important as this, lasting only one week. And besides, the shopping should have been done long ago. The one-platoon system is still better liked than the former one with two sections. Though it reduces the papers, it also greatly reduces the conflicts. It does work a hardship on those essayists who have to have their papers presented by title. But we can all read, and should pay special attention to those papers that we could not hear when they appear in the pages of Radiology. The meeting was opened by a friendly welcome by Dr. Eugene T. McEnery, President-Elect of the Chicago Medical Society. Next came the President's address, by Dr. Bouslog, entitled “The Country Radiologist” but actually outlining the ideal relationship of the radiologist to other doctors. An enumeration of all the papers which followed would take too much space and would necessarily be inadequate. These papers will eventually be published and may be read in Radiology. Two symposia deserve special mention.