RTOW Board Meeting Minutes Friday, March 8 th, :00pm

Transcription

1 RTOW Board Meeting Minutes Friday, March 8 th, :00pm The minutes from the last board meeting were approved 1. Reports A. President s Report The question on whether or not the president of RTOW is required to attend WSRT meetings was posed. Not all WSRT meetings seem applicable to RTOW. Danielle will discuss this with Vicki and report back to the group Update: Danielle spoke with Vicki and determined it is acceptable for the president or a designated representative to attend only the two in-person board meetings as opposed to the board meetings plus additional teleconferences. B. Treasurer s Report Taxes were filed and accepted. Beginning balance was $15,500. Expenses included website, office supplies (new computer) and annual insurance, which all added to $1,207. Income included $1,827 for the fall meeting and $9,200 from spring registration (including vendors) and membership dues. The balance is currently $23,502. We are up about $1,000 from last year. C. Secretary s Report Total: 147 Therapists: 82 Dosimetrists: Students (including UW-LaCrosse and Argosy): Students: 20 Retired: Educators: 4 Directors/Managers: 6 Physician Assistants: Other (not specified on application): 2 D. By-Laws Report No Updates. By-laws responsibilities are now that of the past president. Amy has documented the responsibilities and has given the document to the past president. E. Area Representative s Reports a. Northwest- Saint Joseph s Hospital, Marshfield, WI:Kathie Boyance, R.T. (T) one of the core group to organize the first RTOW meeting in 1977 in Marshfield, has retired. We all will miss her energy & patient focus. She was always a role model to student Therapists & everyone she worked with at Saint Joseph s Hospital Radiation Oncology, Marshfield, WI. Kathie worked for Ministry

2 Health Care for 45 years. She & her Husband Jerry both retired in January 2013 & are enjoying their home in Arizona. David Loshek, PhD, Medical Physicist at Marshfield Clinic also retired in January 2013 after 37 years of dedication to Radiation Oncology. Many of you may remember David as a speaker at some of our early RTOW meetings. David & his colleague Gary Forest developed the first electronic record & verify system used at Saint Joseph s in the late 1970 s. Varian was so impressed; they purchase this system & developed Aria from it. Saint Michael s Cancer Center, Stevens Point, WI: We upgraded to Toshiba CT Scanner in August 2012, upgraded our Pinnacle system & added MIMS, installed Mosaiq electronic medical records & upgraded to Varian True Beam on November 27, It has been quite an exciting time for us. Our new Radiation Oncologist, Dr. Patricia Lillis started on April 1, We have two new Medical Physicists, Xuan Hu, M.S. DABR and Christopher Njeh, PhD, CPhys, DABR. b. Northeast Report- Aspirus Wausau Hospital: Their Spring Oncology Conference is being held on April 13, 2013 in Wausau at the Westwood Conference Center with a focus on prostate cancer. This program has been approved for 7.5 continuing education credits for ARRT and MDCB. More information can be found at Aspirus.org. Wausau Aspirus Hospital is also still looking to hire a dosimetrist as a.8 staff member. St. Nichols Hospital in Sheboygan: will be going live 3/18 with their newly installed On Board Imager. Agnesian Cancer Center in Fond du Lac: The cancer center that was formally Central Wisconsin Cancer Program has recently changed to Agnesian Cancer Center. They ve also hired a new radiation therapist to join their team: Angie Heckl. Angie is a May 2012 Associate of Science in Radiation Therapy graduate of Argosy University. Another exciting thing to happen is that two of their physicians were recently named Best Doctors of 2013 by their peers: Dr Michael VanderKooy, Radiation Oncologist and Dr. Joel Lundberg, Hematology and Medical Oncologist. They ve also had recent renovations due to a $246,000 project supported by the Agnesian Healthcare Foundation. Recent renovations are renewing the overall appearance, which brightens the facility for the patients and families that make frequent visits for either radiation or medical oncology services. Lastly, the Agnesian Healthcare Foundation recently received a $25,000 grant from The Farrah Fawcett Foundation to help individuals that are facing financial

3 hardships as a result of their particular health diagnosis. Funds can help people make rent, cover utility bills, fill an LP tank and provide gas and grocery cards to families affected by cancer. c. Southwest- UW Madison Hospital: We have 2 machines coming up in the next few weeks, a Truebeam and ViewRay (MR guided Cobalt treatment) that was a topic at our fall meeting. On the social side we have 2 babies coming this summer to Sarah Hinkle and Stephanie Bailey. Turville Bay:True Beam accelerator up and running as of New Physician Dr. Richardson joined our group in January of New Therapist Kylie Meyers will be joining our group on Therapist Move One of our radiation therapists is moving from radiation therapist to radiation therapy clinical application specialist. Franciscan Skemp: Dr. Schwartz started in December as our new Radiation Oncologist. In April we will be switching to Aria for our record & verify system we are scheduled to have a machine upgrade to a True Beam. St. Clare Baraboo, WI: We currently have 2 new Doctors that have come on board. As well as Turville Bay in Madison, they are Dr. James Richardson previously from Mercy Hospital in Janesville, and Dr. Michelle Mackay. Dr. Richardson and Dr. Zinda are the two that come up to Baraboo on Mondays Thursdays and Fridays. We are currently pulling from 80 zip codes for our center and have been averaging 20 or more patients per day. Donna Mathe our full time RN retired in December, and our new RN is Emilie Rockwell. d. Southeast- Froedtert Hospital: Installation of 2 Motion Management Systems : Clarity cameras being installed on 2 Linac treatment machines as well as our CT Sim (internal motion management complementary with ultrasound). Vision RT (external motion management) will be added to our Artiste Treatment machine. Elekta INFINITY INSTALLATION- The new treatment machine arrived on Feb 16 and will be completely installed with physics commissioning by May 1 st. Currently have two optional part time positions open; however they are being reserved for inside candidates only. SBRT Site Specific Program being rolled out to other Froedtert Health hospitals: lung / liver / H&N / pancreas / brain / spine / prostate.st Joseph's Hospital in west bend: We have been pretty consistently busy since we opened in July. We have the 1 treatment machine, the Elekta Infinity and one Siemens CT scanner. We have started using IV contrast for CT sims as well as the 4D Gating program for CT. Our imaging is performed with kv, so it allows us to scan with a much lower dose than other conebeams. Wheaton Franciscan

4 Healthcare All Saints: We have implemented a new program we call Deep inspiration Breath Hold for left sided breast cancer. Columbia St. Mary's: both the Milwaukee and Ozaukee campuses- We are getting involved in many events in the community. In February, we helped sponsor and participated in the "Bowl for a Cure" event. And in May, we are looking forward to help sponsor and participate in the "Making Strides" event. Milwaukee VA: We are currently under construction to increase our department size. We will be installing a new Siemens Artiste (hopefully the last out of the box). Anticipate going live August Kenosha: Started using 4D CT scans for planning- Hoping to start gated treatment late spring F. Webmasters Amy will be resigning her position on the board after 12 years. Melissa Weege will be the sole webmaster. Amy has created guide for Melissa and states that the website is now much more user friendly. It has been decided that we will keep the Facebook group, Melissa will get the password/ address under which it was registered from Danielle or Kailee. The question on whether or not the treasurer should have access to the website was discussed. It would be less redundant if the secretary and treasurer could work together with registration and membership on the website if they both had access. Members of RTOW posed the question about past years of membership being recorded on the website. At this time, we are unable to record past years of membership, but it will be recorded on the website starting from this year. 2. Old Business A. Binders It is up to the representative if they would like to keep a physical binder. It is necessary for each rep to be responsible for keeping a list of contacts for hospitals/clinics in their area. At the end of each term, the representative will the list of contacts to the president. It will be the president s responsibility to give that list of contacts to the next representative. The treasurer will be required to keep a binder. Historical records are currently kept in the large bin and passed down to each president. Records must be kept for 7 years. Any ideas to eliminate the need for the bin? B. Webinars It has been suggested that we offer webinar speakers the same amount of compensation as we would in-person speakers ($200). It is hopeful that the first will be available this summer for 1 credit. There will be a username and password required (which has been addressed by the new website) and a quiz at the end. This will be a trial, and we will ask for feedback once the process is complete. The goal is to have at least one webinar per year through RTOW. The first topic will be about workplace bullying. 3. New Business A. Nominations/Recruitment

5 We are looking for a President Elect nomination. Nominations must be made final 1 month before the spring meeting Update: Jared Kast has accepted the President Elect nomination. B. Member s Services (see education below) C. Education Webinar was discussed above. What other possibilities can we offer our members? Ideas include: ASTRO attendees provide a synopsis of their experience, myvarian.com links for CE credits, and links to other educational resources posted on the website. E. Scholarship Committee Melissa will revise the guidelines for the scholarship for continuing education for RTOW members. Currently, we require a 1 page essay and current transcript. The Scholarship recipient will be required to be a presenter at an RTOW meeting. The scholarship funds will not be disbursed until the speaking engagement is fulfilled. The scholarship deadline is September 1 st of each year. 4. RT in DC We did not send a representative last year. The offer was made to the WSRT to cosponsor a student but WSRT could not commit last year. WSRT had the idea to include an essay competition for students and split the cost with RTOW. Whether or not this is a good idea for RTOW was discussed, and if the essay competition was open to radiography students, there is a possibility that RTOW funds would be used to send a radiography student. If we do sponsor someone, it was the board s opinion that it might be more effective to send a RTOW member rather than a student. It was decided to defer this topic until the fall. The bill is close to being passed, so we will wait to see what happens. 5. Elections A. Voting Tomorrow 1. President Elect Dan Steinhoff B. Nominations 1. President Elect Jared Kast 2. Northwest Rep Bridget Morgan 3. Northeast Rep Jaimee Sullivan 4. Treasurer Sarah Seefeld 6. Fall Meeting There was no commitment as of Friday night. Green Bay would like to co-sponsor with Appleton. Back-up plan was Froedtert in Milwaukee. We would like to continue the door prizes for free membership and meeting registration. Average budget to host the meeting at a hospital is $2,700 to $3,500. Hosting the meeting in the Dells is about $5,000-6,000. Update: Green Bay and Appleton has committed to hosting the fall meeting. 7. Open Discussion

6 A. As of now, RTOW is eating the PayPal fee to pay online. Amy thought the cost was approx $1 per transaction. It was decided that there was no way around this, and RTOW will continue to pay. B. Spring Meeting Recap: Wilderness was more work, but comparable in price. There are approx 10 less people attending this meeting than last year s spring meeting. Wildness was more strict on their room rate policy (no discount after the 1 month deadline). We will be inquiring about Chula vs Wilderness on the feedback surveys at the meeting Saturday. C. Don t forget to vote for the ASRT rep on the website. It was discussed that one has to be a member of the WSRT to run for office for ASRT. We would like to enter an agreement of reciprocity with the WSRT (our members are their members, their members are our members). Would it be possible to have an additional fee on our membership to be included in WSRT membership? Update: A reciprocity agreement with the WSRT is not possible. Per Vicki Mullins (WSRT President), the most economical way for RTOW members to become WSRT members is to join for two years as a discount is offered for multi-year memberships. D. Tomorrow s Lunch meeting will include a 5 minute presentation from each vendor (at the request of Elekta). As to not run over our allotted time, we will not have student or area representatives present their reports. We will move these reports to the newsletter. E. New banner? RTOW is in need of a new banner. Karen Mannisto is checking with someone from her church to come up with a quote.