SNMTS Thinks Locally, Acts Globally

Mark Wallenmeyer, MBA, CNMT, RT(N) President, SNMTS

In June 2007, the SNM Technologist Section (SNMTS) adopted a strategic plan, which will be fully implemented by 2011. The plan outlines specific goals with strategic actions that were designed to guide us as we address a variety of important issues, including education, advocacy, and establishing SNMTS as the society that positions technologists within the field of nuclear medicine and molecular imaging and promotes the highest standard of patient care.

Briefly, the strategic plan calls for the SNMTS to continue its work with existing educational programs to facilitate training on principles and concepts through preceptorship tracks, scholarships and grants, and networking. To meet these goals, we will maintain advocacy efforts for reimbursement and research funding as we monitor legislation that affects the profession. We will reinforce relationships with colleagues in related fields, both here in the United States and around the world. Finally, we will work on developing marketing messages and enlivening a recruitment campaign targeted at those in emerging technologies, advanced imaging modalities, and molecular imaging and therapy.

Presiding over the day-to-day aspects of bringing such a plan to fruition has been an exciting venture. We are now poised more or less at the midway point of our strategic plan, and although many goals are still outstanding, we have made great headway on a number of our action items.

On the education front, the Board of Higher Education in Arkansas recently approved the educational program for the Nuclear Medicine Advanced Associate (NMAA) position. This action opens the door for the first program to start accepting students. In addition, as a result of creating the NMAA position, SNMTS was approved by the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists as a Recognized Continuing Education Evaluation Mechanism (RCEEM+) provider. This means that we can now offer many of our educational activities to technologists pursuing the advanced-level position as well as to radiologic technologists. Achieving this accreditation is a demanding process, and on behalf of the SNMTS, I would like to thank everyone who worked tirelessly to attain it.

Our international ties are growing stronger. In October, SNMTS President-Elect Cybil Nielsen, members of the SNMTS leadership, and I attended the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM) in Munich, Germany, where we had the opportunity to meet with leaders from Europe and the South Africa Society of Nuclear Medicine. As a global community of nuclear medicine technologists, we all understand the importance of shared goals, such as improving the quality of nuclear medicine procedures and the education of technologists.

In order to further these goals, the SNMTS leadership invited both international organizations to present the regulatory and scope-of-practice issues of their respective countries during the international session at the 56th annual meeting of the SNM, June 13–17, 2009. In return, both organizations graciously extended an invitation to us to attend their upcoming meetings and to continue these discussions. In addition to these formal sessions, SNMTS will be collaborating with the EANM technologist leadership to develop a press release offering some suggestions to technologists about how they might handle the ⁹⁹Mo shortage. This joint global initiative will offer guidance to all nuclear medicine technologists affected by the shortage.

We will soon begin working with the South African society to develop several SNMTS-sponsored technologist tracks for the World Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology meeting in 2010, which the South African society will host. The growing collaboration between SNMTS and these international societies is very exciting, to say the least. We are honored to have received these invitations and look forward to representing the SNMTS abroad.

Closer to home, we have extended SNMTS member rates for SNM meetings to members of the Canadian Society of Nuclear Medicine to enable them to join us at the upcoming Mid-Winter Educational Symposium in Clearwater, Florida, February 4–8, as well as the annual meeting in their fair city of Toronto.

SNMTS continues to advocate for Consistency, Accuracy, Responsibility, and Excellence (CARE) in Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy, legislation supported also by the Alliance for Quality Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy, a group of 20 radiologic science organizations. Passage of the bill would result in enhanced patient safety and a higher quality of medical imaging and radiation therapy services. Results of the Senate markup should be available soon.

The next few years promise abundant opportunities to share knowledge and strategies with national and international colleagues alike—just one more way that SNMTS is advancing molecular imaging and therapy.