CHAIR OF BOARD'S REPORT Bruce Curran

It's Monday evening (I'm a bit late in submitting this column, you may blame a late release of the Newsletter on me) and I'm sitting at home, first weekday I've been home before 7pm in months, but still with work in front of me. I've been ruminating about the changes in our profession over the past 40 years. In addition to the usual tasks most of us do; machine and patient QA, teaching, research, and policies / procedures to be reviewed and updated, I've spent most of the last three months being the IT lead, working on database audits for our treatment management system, planning the transition to a new treatment planning system, and, this past weekend, bringing systems back up after an extended power outage for hospital electrical systems servicing. Fortunately (for me, recognizing that many of you don't have this luxury) I have the benefit of a great group of medical physicists (Priyanka Kapoor, Tim Ritter, Josh Evans, and Rabten Datsang) that take care of much of the routine treatment planning and chart QA, leaving me the responsibility for IT QA among other things. Overall our jobs and responsibilities continue to increase in this rapidly changing environment; it's hard to predict how our profession will evolve over the next few years, but we know it will change, and most likely change rapidly. Unfortunately, the downward pressures on medical expenses will likely not lead to financial recognition for the added work we are required ("encouraged") to take on, be it in research, teaching, or the clinic.

This leads me to the efforts undertaken by AAPM over the past 2.5 years in looking at the strategic development of AAPM. I have been involved in AAPM leadership for nearly 40 years, starting as Membership Committee chair in 1981. I have watched the senior leadership (Board, EXCOM, and council chairs) become increasingly consumed by the day-to-day needs of both their 'day jobs' and the operations of AAPM, leaving little time to consider how AAPM can strategically position medicalphysicists and the AAPM for the future. AAPM has become more-and-more reactive rather than proactive to changes in the healthcare environment, whereas our skills, as problem solvers and quality improvement experts, should have resulted in recognition of our leadership abilities in our departments and institutions. We need to change AAPM and ourselves to be more outreaching in our efforts to develop our leadership skills as well as positioning AAPM to help members achieve recognition.

I am happy to say that neither AAPM nor its members are idle in working to change this situation. Efforts such as Medical Physics 3.0 (Ehsan Samei and Todd Pawlicki), the Medical Physics Leadership Academy (Jessica Clements and Jennifer Johnson), and the 2016 AAPM Summer School (Jennifer Johnson and Bob Pizzutiello) are providing medical physicists with great resources and opportunities to improve their skills and awareness in their careers. MP 3.0 and the MPLA continue to work on programs; for the 2017 Annual Meeting as well as resources that chapters will be able to incorporate into their meeting programs.

AAPM must evolve as well. We are an incredibly productive organization, but not without areas for quality improvement. We commit or expend significant resources that do not result in 'product'; tools and resources to help our members succeed. For the past two years, a review has been undertaken by the Ad Hoc Committee on Governance Assessment, with the support and participation of the Board of Directors and the Strategic Planning Committee, looking at how AAPM might be structured if we started a new organization today. We have examined many aspects of AAPM; leadership, council and committee structure, and how we work withmembers to advance their skills and our profession. The issues we face today are quite different from what we faced when the AAPM was created in the 60's (actually 1958 – 1975). Our current structure has tended to discourage communication among different groups within the association, particularly as our membership has grown and our interests varied. I believe, along with the Ad Hhoc Committee, that AAPM needs to restructure and re-focus leadership to create a more effective organization in support of its members.

The Ad Hhoc Committee has presented its recommendations and conclusions to the Board over the past 18 months, seeking their guidance and support. The membership has also been surveyed (for the first time in over 10 years) to help identify the directions and programs AAPM should pursue. The result of this effort has been a proposal, approved by the Board this past March, for new By-laws of the Association, recommending a smaller, more strategically focused Board and a newly-created Operations Committee, encompassing the previous Executive Committee as well as elected Council vice-chairs that focuses on continuing the incredible 'product' that AAPM and its members create. The councils have been re-structured into 5 re-purposed councils; Science, Education, Clinical Practice, Regional Organizations, and Member Services. New webpages have been created on the AAPM site describing these changes and the AAPM Governance Quality Improvement Project, which will be discussed this summer at the Annual Business Meeting and then presented to the membership for a vote. I encourage you to learn about these changes and then vote when the ballot is released in August.

Finally I want to thank all of you who participated in the (previously mentioned) Member Survey last fall. The results of that survey will be distributed to the membership this spring, along with some summary analyses of the findings of the survey and discussion of possible changes than may result from the data received