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Volume 12 No 3
I
June 2016
43
Clinical Radiology
Dear AMSIG and College members
I have had the utmost pleasure and
honour of serving as the Australasian
Musculoskeletal Imaging Group (AMSIG)
Vice President and President over the
last four years and it is with great pride
that I have had the opportunity to lead
this wonderful society. During this time,
I have been fortunate to work with a
dynamic executive that has contributed
to taking AMSIG to a new level that we
can all be proud of.
AMSIG has matured far beyond
the previous ‘one meeting, one
dinner’ special interest group that it
appropriately once was. It has now
become a voice for musculoskeletal
imaging advocacy, given the ever
increasing consultation with the
College, Medicare and the Department
of Health (DoH). In particular, the
executive team has been passionate
about delivering quality of care to our
patients by opposing the recent issue
of ultrasound guided musculoskeletal
injections courses aimed at training
sonographers, voicing our concerns to
Medicare regarding the withdrawal of
the autologous blood and PRP injection
item codes, as well as consulting with
working groups with respect to the
appropriateness of clinical criteria for
imaging.
ASMIG membership is at an all-time
record, along with attendance at the
past three meetings. Research grants
are offered for relevant projects that are
deemed important to advancing the
field of musculoskeletal radiology.
Our annual scientific meeting is
something we can be truly proud of.
The strength of these meetings is
the informal, interactive nature of the
presentations, which are brief, relevant
and to the point. Panel discussions
and audience participation is always
popular with sessions consistently
running overtime.
We have been fortunate to overhaul our
website, so that becoming a member
(or renewing membership) is automated.
For AMSIG members, the site is an
invaluable resource for announcements,
keeping in contact with colleagues,
as well as having the ability to review
past meetings which have all been
recorded and are available to view
online. Furthermore,
Skeletal Radiology
has become our official journal, and
with it come benefits from the publisher,
Springer, in respect to discounted
textbook purchases.
Finally, I have been a strong advocate
of improving liaison with other skeletal
societies, for which success has been
achieved with the South African
Musculoskeletal Imaging Group, as
well as positive preliminary discussions
with the European Skeletal Society, the
British Skeletal Society, the International
Skeletal Society and the Society for
Skeletal Radiology. The outcomes of
these discussions will ultimately be
reciprocity, so that AMSIG members can
attend the other societies’ meetings at
their member rate and vice versa.
These and many other tasks and
issues face our new executive, ably led
by Dr Sanjay Dhupelia, who I thank
enormously for his support as Vice
President over the last two years, and
wish him all the best. I look forward
to seeing AMSIG provide further
educational opportunities for its
members outside of the annual scientific
meeting (such as the radiofrequency
ablation course recently held in Sydney),
as well as specific intensive workshops,
categorical courses and potentially
becoming more involved with the
College to assist in the training of
registrars and Fellows.
I invite you all to Melbourne next year
from 6 to 7 May, where Dr Tim Dickson
and I welcome you as convenors of the
2017 AMSIG Annual Scientific Meeting,
with the theme, Imaging of the Foot and
Ankle—a relevant and topical one, I am
sure you will all agree.
Best wishes.
Dr George Koulouris
President, AMSIG
Australasian Musculoskeletal
Imaging Group