SNMTS National Council
of Representatives Meeting Report

By Katherine A. Carlson, BA, CNMT, CCRC

The National Council of Representatives Meeting is a meeting of people representing the Chapters, industry, education, students, the Executive Board and the House of Delegates. The NCR has the responsibility to develop and recommend to the Executive Board, policies and programs regarding professional issues affecting nuclear medicine technology. Several issues of importance to the Chapters were discussed at the NCR meeting, held prior to the 2005 Society of Nuclear Medicine Annual Meeting.

NMTCB and VOICE

The Educational policy of the NMTCB will become effective January 1, 2006. Voluntary reporting of educational activities began in 2005 with mandatory reporting of required educational activities in 2006. Certificants are encouraged to review the updated guidelines for the continuing education policy at www.nmtcb.org. There is reciprocity between ARRT and NMTCB of continuing education credits. But this year, ARRT has changed its policy and mandated stricter verification of attendance at meetings offering continuing education credit. This change takes effect January 1, 2006. Each attendee must verify attendance at the start of the educational session and at the end of the session. The SNMTS finds the ARRT verification requirement impractical and costly at meetings with large attendance such as the educational sessions at the SNM annual meeting. The SNMTS will present their concerns to the ARRT.

The ARRT also tightened requirements for programs to qualify for continuing education credits (i.e., VOICE). The SNM office now needs a minimum of 4 weeks to process program applications for VOICE credit.

The NMTCB Ethics/Disciplinary policy became effective January 1, 2005. Certified Technologists are encouraged to review the policy on the NMTCB web site.

The NMTCB has 17,974 active certified technologists with 327 having passed the Cardiology specialty exam and 114 passing the PET certification exam. There are 233 technologists registered to take the next NCT exam, 193 to take the PET exam [7 are RT(R)], and 4 to take the PET+NCT exam.

CARE Act

The CARE Act has been reintroduced into the House this session and the RadCARE Act in the Senate. The SNMTS will call for its membership to send letters of support to their representatives in Washington, DC.

Professional Development Task Force

The SNMTS is struggling to meet the requirements of a large and growing organization with regard to future leadership. A strategy has been prepared to create a larger leadership pool. The Professional Development Strategy has three steps:

1. Identify and recruit new leadership candidates.

2. Train new candidates through a Leadership Curriculum.

3. Ongoing evaluation and support of leadership competencies.

Current SNMTS leaders were asked to identify a member with the potential to become a future leader and to agree to mentor the candidate. The mentors will report on their candidate’s progress through Steps 1 and 2 of the Strategy to the SNMTS leadership at the 2006 MidWinter Meeting.

Education and Research Foundation

In 2005, the ERF provided $99,750 in grants and awards that benefited 130 nuclear medicine and nuclear medicine technologist students, trainees and professionals in the form of scholarship assistance, fellowship opportunities, research grant support and recognition awards. From October 1, 2004 through May 25, 2005, 269 SNM members contributed $27,284 to the general fund of the ERF and 229 members contributed $4,208 to the Paul Cole Scholarship Fund. A three-year fundraiser, “Shaping the Future”, will be launched later this year. The goal of the plan is to raise $500,000 by the end of year three to award to the nuclear medicine community.

The recent issue of the SNM Development Office publication, Contributor, recognized the $2000 contribution from the Central Chapter Technologist Section to the Paul Cole Scholarship Fund. The contribution will establish two additional scholarships for students in programs in the Central Chapter. It is hoped that the Central Chapter’s lead in establishing scholarships will encourage other Chapters to make contributions to the ERF.

Election Results

Past, Present and future leadership of the Central Chapter Tech Section network at the annual meeting. Left to right: Lyn Mehlberg, Past President, CCSNMTS, and SNMTS, Kathy Carlson, Immediate Past President, CCSNMTS, Rebecca Sajdak, President, CCSNMTS, Sharon Lafferty, Past President, CCSNMTS, Jim Kritzman, President-Elect, CCSNMTS, Karen Martin, Past President, CCSNMTS

The SNMTS Nominating Committee announced the election results as follows:

• President-Elect: D. Scott Holbrook

• Secretary: April Mann

• Finance Committee: David Gilmore

• SNM House of Delegates: Kathy Thomas, Danny Basso, Cindi Luckett-Gilbert and Mary Moreau

The SNMTS awarded Danny Basso and D. Scott Holbrook the distinction of Fellow of the SNMTS for their service on the Chapter and National levels of the SNMTS. They may now use the initials FSNMTS after their names.

Congratulations go to Karen Martin, past president of the Central Chapter Tech Section, on her election by the NCR as a member-at-large on the SNMTS Executive Board.

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