EDITOR’S PAGE

The Society of Nuclear Medicine will hold its Annual Meeting in Toronto during the last week of this month. For those that are fortunate enough to attend, the Annual Meeting is a wonderful opportunity to meet others working in the field of nuclear medicine. I have developed many professional relationships by attending the Annual Meeting, and each year I look forward to seeing old colleagues and meeting new ones.

This year, I will attend my 21^st Annual Meeting, having missed only the Orlando meeting in 1994. My first meeting was in Detroit in 1980. I was a technologist at The University of Michigan at the time, and it was the only year we could attend the meeting without having to present a paper. I was hooked. I have attended as a technologist, while working in the corporate world, and, in recent years, as a scientist. Although the first meeting was the most fun, each year I am amazed at the interesting developments reported at the meeting.

In 1982, I attended the meeting in Miami and presented a paper on identifying artifacts in SPECT images. That paper won the award for best paper presented by a technologist. I was thrilled and (of course) very happy to accept the cash portion of the award. I also received a letter from Paul Christian, the editor of the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology at that time, asking that I write a scientific paper based on the work I presented at the Annual Meeting. My decision to accept that challenge initiated a learning experience that has served me well over the years. I did not think at the time that writing a paper would be a very easy thing to do, so I can be sympathetic to those who are just now writing their first papers. I learned that there is quite a difference between writing a scientific paper and anything else I had written previously. The first paper was the hardest; like anything else we do in life, the task gets easier with repetition.

This year, the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology is going to have 2 sessions on scientific writing for technologists. We want to help technologists get started writing that first paper and to make the process easier. We will discuss converting your talk to a paper, the formats required by the JNMT, and the editorial process. Members from the editorial board and the publications committee will be available to answer your questions during the last part of the session. The sessions will be held on Monday, the 25th; the first will be at 8:00 am, the second at 4:15 pm. I encourage all technologists that are attending the meeting, and in particular those presenting a paper or poster, to attend one of these sessions. If you are presenting, bring along the material that you will be using for your talk; individuals with posters should bring the text from the poster. We will use these materials as the starting point for a scientific paper. Keep in mind that only 100 or so people will hear your talk, whereas all technologists will benefit from your work once it is published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology.

And so, on to Toronto! In addition to new science, there is a wealth of continuing education activities. Visit the exhibit hall and find out what is new in the world of instrumentation and radiopharmaceuticals. See the sites in Toronto, a wonderful city with excellent restaurants and theater. Meet others that work in nuclear medicine and expand your professional network. There is no better place than the Annual Meeting to meet other technologists, physicians, and basic scientists. See you there!