Welcome to the Presidents page of the Alabama Academy of Radiology’s web site

What I hope to accomplish with the President’s page is to provide periodic updates on issues important to our members.  As president of the AAR one of my more important responsibilities is to keep an eye out for issues affecting our membership throughout the state of Alabama.  This is accomplished by frequent visits to MASA’s web site and careful review of MASA and governmental information that could impact our specialty.  When issues are identified, I feel that it is my responsibility to make the appropriate contacts to further investigate these potential problems.  While this is something that we could all do ourselves, most of us are simply not able to make the time to drill down on these issues. Part of my job is to make time to investigate and respond on your behalf.

A recent example is a decision by MASA to submit an amicus brief in support of a group of cardiologists who were protesting the need for a CON for an outpatient cardiac lab.   The local hospital had initiated a complaint against the cardiologists who were building an outpatient cardiac care facility claiming that their project did not meet criteria for an in office exemption. I found out from MASA that their project involved an outpatient cath lab and, as far as the MASA legal team knew, did not include cardiac CT or MRI. Interestingly, I learned from MASA general council that the problem had been resolved when the hospital was given the opportunity to have a financial interest in the project.  I am uncertain how giving a hospital a financial opportunity for involvement made the project less of a problem from an in office exemption stand point and I will leave that for others to judge.  The bottom line was that the AAR dug into the details to determine how this action by MASA might adversely affect our members.  Further action, if indicated, would have been tempered by the AAR Executive Committee which prevents problems that could arise from a shoot from the hip approach of any AAR President.

In spite of attempted diligence on my part many of the most important problems are identified by our members in the field.  I call on all AAR members to contact me or the Executive committee with potential problems they identify.

An important example of problems identified by a member is a situation involving a radiology technologist who was performing procedures in a hospital department allowing a radiologist to perform imaging interpretation off site.  My investigation of this problem lead to the discovery that this practice was in place at several Alabama hospitals.  Your Executive Committee believed that the functions performed by the unsupervised technologists constituted the unlawful practice of medicine.  Through work with the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners and the Alabama State Department of Public Health we were able to stop these activities and helped set a precedent that will deter others from pursuing similar practices.

There is much work to be done in protecting our specialty from attacks on many fronts.  I and the Executive Committee will do all we can but need input and assistance from AAR members.

I will not dwell on the 2008 presidential election.  Whether your candidate won or lost one thing is perfectly clear. Medicine is about to undergo tremendous change.  We must advocate for a strong role for imaging by radiologists to protect the interest of our patients.  If we do not we will see further erosion of our place in providing imaging interpretation and in the performance of imaging guided procedures.  Whoever you supported in our recent election I urge you to vote for Radiology by being an active member of the ACR and AAR and by contributing generously to our PACs.  RADPAC and AL RADPAC are the tools which are specialty can use to insure that Radiology is performed by Radiologists.  With the looming challenges come opportunities.  If we go not take on the challenges ahead we will have only ourselves to blame if the reorganization of medicine works against our specialty.

Thanks for your attention and for your future input and assistance.

Arthur Sandy, MD
President of the Alabama Academy of Radiology

View the presentation from the AAR Fall Membership Meeting held September 13, 2008

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