AAPM PRESIDENT'S REPORT Melissa C. Martin, MS, Gardena, CA

This is truly an exciting time of the year for AAPM. Our Annual Meeting is within a few weeks and there are many members and staff that have spent numerous hours planning our sessions to cover the latest in scientific developments, clinical applications, continuing education sessions and professional development. One of the major developments for this year's meeting is the significant increase in the number of SAM sessions being offered. For those members who need to track their CEU's and SAM credits, this year's meeting is designed to offer you a wide range of sessions to attend in order to achieve this requirement. I am very excited for the 2017 Presidential Symposium on Monday morning, July 31, with the three outstanding speakers who are slated to particpate. We will hear from Jim Borgstede, MD, FACR, Past President of the RSNA, presenting the role of the medical physicist in Diagnostic Imaging, followed by Brian Kavanagh, MD, MPH, FASTRO, President of ASTRO, presenting the role of the medical physicist in Radiation Oncology, and Paul Naine, MSc, MIPEM, Sr. Manager, Clinical Operations for Elekta presenting the role of the medical physicist in industry. The overall theme of the symposium is the strength and rewards of the various roles of the medical physicist and our colleagues working in unity to achieve our goals. My sincere thanks go out to the entire Meeting Coordination Committee who have worked so hard to put this outstanding meeting together. The Program Directors (Kristy Brock, Scientific Program, Robin Stern, Educational Program, Jeff Limmer, Professional Program) have done a fantastic job with the presentations. The Headquarters staff have put countless hours into organizing the many aspects of this year's meeting, as they do every year. We have again received great support from our vendors for this upcoming Annual Meeting. Please make time in your schedule to visit with them in the Exhibit Hall. I sincerely hope to see as many of you as possible at the meeting in Denver. If you have the time and opportunity to bring your family with you to the meeting, there are many places to vacation in the Rocky Mountains.

We have already had two very successful meetings this year: the Spring Clinical Meeting and the Summer School on Brachytherapy. Both boasted attendance higher than last year and each had very useful and practical sessions. Thanks go to the directors for these meetings: Bruce Thomadsen, Mark Rivard, and Luc Breulieu for the Summer School and Jessica Clements, Michael Howard, Kyle Antes, Jean Moran, Annie Hsu, Brent Parker, Matthew Meineke, Jeff Moirano, Bill Sensakovic, and Austin Hadley for the Spring Clinical Meeting. Our vendors were very supportive of the Spring Clinical Meeting this year for which we are deeply grateful.

Both the Professional Council (Dan Pavord, Chair) and Education Council (Jim Dobbins, Chair) have held their annual retreats at Headquarters to work on the many projects and challenges confronting our members at this time. The Professional Council members have spent many hours working on the updated version of our Scope of Practice for Clinical Medical Physicists which will be published soon at the next MPPG. This document is required to be approved by our Board of Directors before the next document on the roles of the Medical Physicists Assistants can be developed. It is necessary to document and outline exactly what tasks must be performed by the Qualified Medical Physicist in both Imaging and Therapy. With several states trying to define the required roles of the QMP,it is of utmost importance that AAPM define our roles and not have them defined by outside agencies.

Another ongoing activity that is gaining momentum is the project headed by Jatinder Palta and our Headquarters staff to develop a Corporate Council. This initiative will provide our vendors with the opportunity to work with our members in a more cohesive manner developing a closer working relationship between the two. As an organization, we need to develop an identity that our members bring to the vendors which is not available from any other organization. These nominations will be approved at the next Board of Directors' meeting.

In May, AAPM held a successful training day at the CRCPD meeting. Training on CR/DR was held in the morning and CBCT in the afternoon. Additional training was presented on Error Prevention in Radiation Therapy later in the week. This followed two intense days of Mammography Training organized by the CRCPD, FDA, ACR and AAPM. We had many participants in this training program and the relationships with the CRCPD have been strengthened. These presentations are available in our Virtual Library for those that are interested and would like to see what the inspectors have been trained to ask on their next visit! Presentations on CR/DR were made by Kyle Jones and Tony Seibert while CBCT was presented by Bob Pizzutiello and Brent Mauro. The Errors Prevention Session was presented by Bruce Thomadsen, Gary Ezzell, and Debbie Gilley. Physicists participating in the Mammography Training were Eric Berns, Penny Butler, Doug Pfeiffer, Tyler Fisher, and myself.

As you can see in addition to the Governance project, there is a lot of activity going on so stay tuned and participate in your local chapter as well as many of these national activities as possible. I hope to see you soon.

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