News

New IRS Officers Elected for 2007-2008

Kate A. Feinstein, MD, FACR from the Department of Radiology at The University of Chicago Hospitals in Chicago became the President of the IRS having served as the Secretary/Assistant Treasurer and then President-Elect/Treasurer for the past two years. She replaces Leonard Berlin, MD, FACR, from Rush North Shore Medical Center who was President for 2006-2007. Matthew J. Kuhn, MD, FACR, from the Department of Radiology at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield is the President-Elect/Treasurer and Kathleen A. Ward, MD, FACR from the Department of Radiology at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood was elected Secretary/Assistant Treasurer. John F. Hibbeln, MD from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago was elected Alternate Councilor for the American College of Radiology. Councilors and Alternates also serve as members of the IRS Executive Committee. For a full listing of Executive Committee members, click here.

Chicago Radiological Society
Installs New Officers for 2007-2008

Jay L. Korach, MD, of Stat Imaging in Chicago will serve as CRS President for 2007-2008 having served as Vice President and Program Director for the past two years. John F. Hibbeln, MD, from the Department of Diagnostic Radiology at Rush University Medical Center, is President-Elect and Secretary-Treasurer. Edward A. Michals, MD from the Department of Radiology at the University of Illinois Hospital is the new Vice President and Program Director. For a full listing of officers, Executive Committee and Trustees, please visit the CRS web site at www.chi-rad-soc.org.

Resident and Fellow Section Elects Officers

Joseph Carabetta, MD, from the University of Chicago Hospitals, was elected President of the Resident and Fellow Section, replacing Gretchen Conroy, MD, from Rush University who was president in 2006-2007. Mustafa Bashir, MD, from Rush University Medical Center was elected Vice President and President-Elect. Douglas Brylka, MD from Loyola University Medical Center was elected Secretary-Treasurer and Alice Yao-Lee, MD from Rush University will serve as the RFS Program Director. The RFS meets in conjunction with the monthly meetings of the CRS.

IRS and CRS Schedule 2007-2008 Meetings

The IRS and CRS have scheduled their slate of meetings for the 2007-2008 season. The CRS will hold five monthly meetings October 2007 to April 2008 with a joint meeting with the IRS scheduled for Saturday, March 15th. The CRS Meetings will again be held at the Searle Conference Center in the Professional Building at Rush University Medical Center. Watch your mail, email and the CRS and IRS web sites for updated information.

The dates for the meetings are as follows:

• Thursday, Oct. 18, 2007
• Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2007
• Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008
• Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008
• Saturday, March 15, 2008 (Joint Meeting with IRS)
• Thursday, April 17, 2008.

The Joint Meeting of the Chicago Radiological Society, Illinois Radiological Society and Central Illinois Radiological Society scheduled for Saturday, March 15th will focus on “Hot Topics” with Leonard Berlin, MD, FACR, from Rush North Shore Medical Center serving as program chair.

Radiologists hold Capitol Hill Day in Washington

During the ACR Annual Meeting and Chapter Leadership Conference held in May in Washington, over 300 radiologists from around the United States visited with their respective Congressional Offices. Illinois Congressional Offices visited included Senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama and Representatives Bobby Rush, Rahm Emanuel, Danny Davis, Mark Kirk, Judy Biggert, Ray LaHood and John Shimkus. The key issues for 2007 addressed the repeal or delay of the Deficit Reduction Act and additional funding for the Biotechnology Division of the National Institute of Health.

Residents Gain Exposure to Socio-Economic Issues

The American College of Radiology and the respective state chapters again sponsored residents and fellows to attend the ACR meeting in Washington. In addition to attending special programming aimed toward residents and fellows, our younger colleagues attended the general sessions and witnessed firsthand the policy making sessions of the ACR Executive Council. Six residents from Illinois attended the meeting under sponsorship of the ACR and the IRS.

They included Syam Vasireddy, MD, from the SIU School of Medicine in Springfield; David A. Dusek, MD, from the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria; Faisal Vali, MD, a radiation oncology resident from Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago; Alice Yao-Lee, MD, from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago; Mustafa Bashir, MD, from Rush University Medical Center; and Anupam Basu, MD, from Loyola University Medical Center. The resident and fellow scholarship to the ACR was initiated by Illinois many years ago at the urging of the late Steven Pinsky, MD. It was so successful that the ACR made it part of their official program and helped offset the costs of the residents attending the meeting.

Illinois Radiologists Receive Fellowship Status in ACR

Three Illinois Radiologists received their Fellowship designation at ceremonies at the ACR meeting and may now include FACR as part of their credentials. Matthew J. Kuhn, MD, FACR, and W. Ross Stevens, MD, FACR, both from Springfield, and Albert A. Nemcek, MD, FACR, from Chicago were awarded the designation at the Convocation at the ACR meeting. The application period for Fellowship for 2008 is now closed. Radiologists, radiation oncologists or physicists interested in applying should apply by March 1, 2008 in order for the IRS Fellowship Committee to review and approve applications for submission to ACR by May 1 for 2009. Fellowship information is available on ACR web site at www.acr.org, under the membership tab.

W. Ross Stevens, MD, FACR, Elected
to ACR Nominating Committee

W. Ross Stevens, MD, FACR, from Springfield has been elected to the ACR Nominating Committee. In that capacity he will be part of the process to solicit and select candidates for future Nominating Committees and for the ACR Steering Committee. Candidates for the Nominating Committee and the Steering Committee are voted on at the ACR Annual Meeting by members of the ACR Council. A past president of the IRS and the CIRS Doctor Stevens chairs the IRS Legislative Affairs Committee and has been active in the ACR State Legislative Committee.

Illinois Legislative Report

Michelle Gentry-Wiseman of MGW Associates, who is the IRS Legislative Affairs Consultant, has been busy in Springfield monitoring legislation and regulatory actions, working in conjunction with W. Ross Stevens, MD, FACR, from Springfield, chair of the IRS Legislative Affairs Committee. Below is her report on a number of issues she has been following.

The 2007 Legislative session has been an interesting one, with the political drama high at the end having no agreement on a budget prior to the start of the new fiscal year. Even at the time of writing—July 23—there is still no agreement in sight and only 1 week remaining on the one month budget extension passed a few weeks ago. Substantively, the House and Senate have, to date, passed more than 700 pieces of legislation through both chambers—with a number focusing on health care related issues. But the Governor's priority of universal health care has yet to be addressed. Below are some highlighted legislative proposals that have been sent to the Governor.

HB 147 (Harris-D/Koehler-D): Amends the law concerning insurance coverage in Illinois to require that insurers provide coverage annually for a complete and thorough physical examination of the breast, including but not limited to a comprehensive clinical breast examination performed by a health care provider to check for lumps and other changes for the purpose of early detection and prevention of breast cancer. Provides that every insurer must establish a separate and distinct reimbursement code for comprehensive clinical breast examinations of 6-10 minutes in length.

HB 1798 (Brosnahan-D/Raoul-D): Amends the Wrongful Death Act. Provides that a jury may award damages for grief, sorrow, and mental suffering to the surviving spouse and next of kin of the deceased. Provides that any amount reduced from a contributory negligent beneficiary's share of damages shall be distributed to the other beneficiaries in proportion to their respective degrees of dependency. Deletes language regarding limitations on the amount of damages. Applies to causes of action accruing on or after the effective date of the amendatory Act.

SB 360 (Ronen-D/Saviano-R): The legislation re-establishes the Nurse Practice Act through January of 2018. The language makes a variety of changes to various licensure Acts that will allow Advanced Practice Nurses to be granted distinct privileges without the necessity for a collaborative agreement with a physician in ambulatory surgical treatment centers and hospitals. While an attending physician would have to determine the role of an APN in providing care to his/her patients—the changes will provide that a credentialed APN may order, select and administer medications—including controlled substances—in these settings.

SB 1365 (Kotowski-D/Cole-R): Provides that every insurer shall provide coverage for a comprehensive ultrasound screening of an entire breast or breasts if a mammogram demonstrates heterogeneous or dense breast tissue, when medically necessary as determined by a physician licensed to practice medicine in all its branches (instead of based on the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System established by the American College of Radiology or if the woman is believed to be at increased risk for breast cancer due to family history or prior personal history of breast cancer, positive genetic testing, or other indications as determined by a woman's health care provider).

On a very positive note, the IRS was successful in working with the Department of Nuclear Safety in getting a category included in state regulation for the recognition of Radiation Assistants. The rules implementing this change were proposed in February of this year and should be finally adopted sometime within the next several weeks. The RA category has been promoted by the ACR the American Society of Radiologic Technologists (ASRT) and its state affiliate the Illinois State Society of Radiologic Technologists (ISSRT) for a number of years, both to address issues of workloads for radiologists and an enhanced career path for radiation technologists.

IRS Creates Legislative Committee

To support our legislative consultant’s efforts in Springfield, the IRS Executive Committee has agreed to establish and fund a small legislative committee. W. Ross Stevens, chair of the IRS Legislative Committee, is the Treasurer. The committee will operate only at the state level in support of legislation and regulations to enhance the practice of radiology and patient care in Illinois.

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