EDITOR'S PAGE

Frances Neagley, CNMT, FSNMTS Editor, JNMT

It is the beginning of another new year. I have just returned from ten days at my brother's place near Yosemite National Park. I go there each year around the beginning of the year to visit him and get my annual dose of weather—rain, snow, hail, sleet, and power failures. As a native Californian, I prefer my weather in small, easily managed doses.

The only hitch in this recent trip was that we lost Internet connections after the biggest of the storms. My cell phone doesn't work when I am there and I really did not miss it, but the Internet is another matter. Luckily this problem occurred at the end of my trip rather than at the beginning so that I did not get too anxious or cut my trip short.

The Internet has truly changed our professional and leisure lives. I admit to probably spending an inordinate amount of time online. Virtually all of the functions of JNMT are done online. The manuscripts are submitted electronically and I am notified when they are ready for the review process to begin. I select the reviewers from an online list, the reviewers submit their reviews to me, and I then review them and ask and/or answer the questions that are related to the reviews before conveying the reviews and our decisions to the authors. Sometimes it all seems a bit impersonal and I wonder about the people submitting and reviewing manuscripts. They are so important but I really do not know who most of them are.

In addition to my duties as editor of JNMT, I continue to be involved as a reviewer for VOICE (Verification of Involvement in Continuing Education) and most of this work is done by e-mail. It is anticipated that by the end of this year, both the application and the review process will be online. This is a really exciting prospect because it will allow reviewers to look at much more historical data.

What I find so fascinating about the Internet is that it can answer just about any question I might have at any time of the day or night. What are the dates of the annual meeting, the Northern California meeting, the Western Regional meeting? What other interesting meetings are out there? Where are these meetings being held, what is nearby, and how about maps and travel directions? Through the SNM Web site, I can find e-mail addresses for technologists or physicians with whom I have lost contact. I can also contact staff in the office when I have questions or problems with my membership. There are all sorts of continuing education articles and news items on the SNM Web site also.

I don't really need to go into all of the leisure or fun things on the Internet. The possibilities are endless and mostly add up to major enhancements to my normal tendencies toward procrastination, especially when it is time for writing my editorials. And on that note, I think we should look at what is in this issue of JNMT.

We have three continuing education articles in this issue—one on SPECT/CT, another on occupational hazards, and a third on cardiac CT. There are imaging articles concerning hyperparathyroidism, thallium, and gastric emptying. We even have two letters to the editor relating to an earlier submission entitled “Insights About Nuclear Medicine Technology.”

By the time the next issue of JNMT is out in June, the annual SNM/SNMTS meeting will be going on in New Orleans. I will be there and hope to see many of you and maybe meet some of the people whose names I know only from my online searches. If you have any comments or questions about JNMT, I can be contacted at fneagley{at}pacbell.net and as I said above, I am online a lot so feel free to reach out to me any time.