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The European Congress of Radiology 2004

rstanley{at}ajroffice.org

Vienna, Austria, in March is quite a lovely city to visit, unless you don't like snow. Vienna is the annual site of the European Congress of Radiology (ECR), representing an agreed-upon compromise for all the nationalistic desires to hold it in one of the other major cities of Europe and the United Kingdom. Although my wife Sally and I have been to lovely Vienna before, it was not to attend the ECR. My corepresentative was the president-elect of the ARRS, Dr. Chris Merritt, who was accompanied by his wife Evie. Dr. Merritt and I were joined by Linda Thomas and Keri Sperry, two valuable members of the ARRS team in Leesburg, VA.

The meeting was held in the Austria Center Vienna, a large, modern facility, about one-sixth the size of McCormick Place in Chicago, that was easily and quickly reached from the city center by an excellent subway system with trains running every few minutes. The need for a cab, other than to and from the airport, was negligible. Most of the meeting hotels were in or close to the city center. The center of Vienna is arranged within a ring of boulevards; the spokes of this municipal wheel all lead to the center, a pedestrian-only mall extending for blocks, filled with upscale shops, restaurants, and historic buildings and fountains.

The resemblance of the organization of the meeting to that of the Radiological Society of North America meeting was immediately apparent. In addition to the various societies, virtually all the participating countries had centrally located booths where you could find members of their delegations at various times of the day. The audiovisual facilities were state of the art, and the meeting rooms were spacious and comfortable. All the presentations were delivered in English, which your monolingual editor greatly appreciated.

The ARRS/AJR booth was ideally located a few feet away from the delivery end of an escalator arising from the main entry and registration area, where virtually all the attendees had to pass. We had the opportunity to meet and chat with many of our international journal contributors as well as interested newcomers to the AJR. Over the years I have had the pleasure of meeting many radiologists from western Europe and the United Kingdom. This meeting gave me the opportunity to expand my horizons considerably. Although the meeting is sponsored by the European Congress, Asia was well represented. One of the best sessions I attended was presented by a delegation of abdominal imagers from Korea, who brilliantly covered the topic of hepatic cholangio-carcinoma in all its aspects. The imaging methods and techniques were state of the art.

An impressive meeting feature worthy of our emulation was the EPOS (electronic presentation online system). Registrants could sit at a comfortable computer console, located in multiple vendor-sponsored sites, and view every scientific exhibit at the Center. Many of the courses offered at the meeting were also online and could be accessed from remote sites, such as one's hotel room, via a high-speed Internet connection to one's laptop. In this regard, the ECR appears to be out in front.

EPOS may be a solution to the distance learning problem we may be facing as the lifelong learning requirements of the Maintenance of Certification Program of the American Board of Radiology become a reality. The ARRS leaders need to investigate this system, or its equivalent, for possible use in conjunction with our annual meeting or for continuing medical education (CME) throughout the year.

I can confidently recommend the annual meeting of the ECR in Vienna, Austria, as an excellent alternative to stateside CME programs for those with a taste for travel to one of the great cities of Europe.

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This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Stanley, R. J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Stanley, R. J. Social Bookmarking                      What's this?