ROYAL COLLEGE OF RADIOLOGISTS BREAST GROUP
MINUTES OF THE ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
Church House Conference Centre, London
5 pm Monday 1st November 2004
Chairman - Dr Peter Britton
Approximately 91 members in attendance
1. Anu Damera - Peter paid tribute to Anu Damera, Breast Radiologist at Ipswich, who died in tragic circumstances earlier this year, and one minute’s silence was observed.
2. Apologies – there were none
3. Minutes of 2003 meeting – were agreed as a correct record
4. Matters arising - not on agenda
a. Disclosure of Audit - Dr Britton gave an update on progress with Disclosure of Audit. Dr Mike Michell told the meeting that it was going to be rolled out in his region, driven by demand from both patients and Surgeons. It was noted that as yet there is no training established for Radiologists involved in discussing disclosure of previous mammograms.
b. Workload - Dr Hilary Dobson has submitted an over-view on Workload in Symptomatic Breast Imaging to Clinical Radiology following the discussions at the AGM 2 years ago. This is a suggested framework for workload, planning for new colleagues etc.
5. Breast Group promotion
a. UKRC - The Breast Group have been asked to organise a session at UKRC, and we have offered to sponsor a lecturer or visiting speaker.
b. Roentgen Professorship - Dr Andy Evans from Nottingham has been announced as this year’s Roentgen Professor and the meeting sends him congratulations.
c. RCR Breast Group Professor - Peter Britton floated the idea to the audience of sponsoring a Professorship. A show of hands was overwhelmingly in favour of this idea, and ideas for meetings, seminars etc that the Professor might hold were requested from the audience. Members to contact Peter Britton for this
6. Training
a. Focused Individualised Training (FIT) - Peter explaining that this was designed to attract trainees who might have a special interest in breast radiology to focus their training on this early on.
b. Core Curriculum - Breast Radiology as a core subject is under threat and Peter strongly urged us to protect our interests by raising the profile of Breast Radiology as a core subject as often as we can. Discussion then followed around Breast Radiology as extremely useful, teaching generic skills, multi-disciplinary team working, breaking bad news etc. Points made from the audience were that we monitor quality, outcomes etc and have the best monitored skill-mix and the benefits of PERFORMS. Everyone felt very strongly, and it was suggested, that we should construct a letter to the Education Board of the Royal College of Radiologists. This received universal backing. Action: PB
c. SpR Survey - Peter explained that we were to survey SpRs regarding their future career paths and interests with specific questions targeted around breast radiology.
7. E-contact
Peter reported that we are slowly getting together a database of addresses and names of all Breast Radiologists, with their e-mail addresses. In the future we hope to get access to all Breast Radiologists, not just Breast Group members, and having an e-mail database will enable prompt communication between all Breast Radiologists. Julie Cook wondered if abstract posters and presentations could be put on a CD for delegates so that they could take home interesting items for discussion with colleagues who were perhaps unable to attend the meeting. We discussed copyright implications of this, which could be circumvented by asking authors to sign a waiver as currently done at the Royal College of Radiologists Scientific meeting. Online submission of abstracts was discussed and it was agreed to pursue this line. We also discussed putting abstracts and presentations on the website in the member’s area. It was agreed the Executive would discuss this further at their meeting in January.
8. Treasurer’s Report
There are currently 461 ordinary members (increased from 444 last year). Simon Daniell requested that everybody should pay be direct debit if at all possible and we have a current balance of £30,467 which is extremely healthy. A summary of the Treasurer’s report was shown.
9. Honorary Membership
Proposals for Honorary members were Professor Kristiana Kull and Professor Georgio Resarto
10. Bursary and Pump Priming Grant
Sue Barter reminded everybody that the Bursary was available and that the Breast Group sponsors a £5000 Pump Priming Grant to be applied for in the usual way from the Royal College of Radiologists. Anybody requiring further information about either of these awards should contact Sue Barter.
11. 2005 Annual Scientific Meeting
This was announced and will be held at the East Midlands Conference Centre, Nottingham on Monday 31st October and Tuesday 1st November 2005. Janet invited suggestions for speakers and topics, and urged everyone to fill in their feedback forms for this meeting, since it is the suggestions on those feedback forms which we take forward.
12. Breast Group Officers
Peter announced that Erika will become Chairman next November and suggestions for nominations for Vice Chairman were invited. Anybody who would like to consider this post and would like a bit more information is encouraged to contact either Peter or Erika. Janet Litherland has agreed to carry on as Meetings Organiser for another term.
13. Any Other Business
a. Julie Cook announced that a document on Ultrasound for non-Radiologists would be published by the Royal College of Radiologists soon. The publication deals with all of ultrasound, but there is a specific section on Guidance and Standards in Breast Ultrasound for non-Radiologists.
b. Joyce Magennis asked about Clinical Excellence awards. Apparently we, as a special interest group, could dominate people for higher awards. It was agreed that the Executive would take this forward. The date for submission is January 29th 2005. Ros Given-Wilson proposed that a sub-group should be set up to rank the CV questionnaires with the criteria being contribution to the Breast Group or breast imaging in general.
c. Regarding the Breast Group sponsored Professor, Liz Kutt from Bristol suggested we should call it the BIG Professor (Breast Imaging Group Professor!)
d. Consultant Radiographers - There was discussion around the Royal College of Radiologists Breast Group’s relationship with the new grade of Consultant Radiographers. To date, the Royal College of Radiologists Constitution has been very clear in that, since we are a sub-group of the Royal College of Radiologists, the same membership and associate membership criteria apply. Any change to our Constitution would have to go through the Royal College of Radiologists and it is unlikely, because of the nature of our sub-group, that we could have Consultant Radiographers as members unless the Royal College of Radiologists changed its Constitution.
The meeting closed at about 6 pm.
14. Date of next meeting
Monday 31st October 2005 in Nottingham