From the President-Elect

The 2010 HPS Midyear Meeting and PDS: This year the 43rd Annual Midyear Meeting of the Health Physics Society will be held on January 24-27, 2010 at the Albuquerque Convention Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico. The early registration deadline recently was changed to January 1, 2010. The topic of the Midyear is “Radiation Risk Communication to the Public.” The meeting hotel is the Double Tree Albuquerque and reservations will be available at the special rate until January 1, 2010; but, I suspect there will be rooms available for a time after that unless sold out earlier. The 2010 HPS Professional Development School will be held on January 27-29, 2010 also at the Double Tree and Albuquerque Convention Center. The topic is “Radiation Risk Communication – Issues and Solutions.” My old Baltimore-Washington Chapter HPS colleague and past HPS President Ray Johnson is the Academic Dean for the program. Our Section President, Linnea Wahl, and other members of the Board are expected to be in attendance for at least the Midyear meeting and hope to see you there.

The 2010 HPS Annual Meeting: As I noted in the last newsletter, the 55th Annual Meeting of the HPS will take place June 27 through July 1, 2010 in Salt Lake City, Utah. I have contacted the 2010 HPS Program Committee and confirmed our intent to have a special section on accelerator health physics. After some preliminary discussions with members of the Section, it appears we will have a good chance to have two sessions at the meeting, subject to members submitting abstracts on a timely basis. The first and primary accelerator session before the annual Section business meeting is proposed to be a focus session on light sources including synchrotrons and free-electron laser accelerator-based systems. Additional topics relating to laser use and safety in accelerators also would be appropriate. A second accelerator session, focused on the usual operational topics and student papers (at least those that would not be immediately relevant to the first session) would follow, probably on the same day in the afternoon, but only if we have enough abstracts for it. The abstract due date is February 5, 2010, and it is not too early to be preparing abstracts for your papers and encouraging your students to prepare their abstracts as well. I again would like to emphasize that it is not too early for me to be receiving your nominations for the 2010 G. William Morgan Lecturer at the HPS Annual Meeting. The following is from HPS Rule 13.13: “This award is given to internationally known authorities on topics pertinent to the Society to present lectures at national meetings of the Society. The lecturers may be selected as keynote speakers at plenary sessions at the Annual or Midyear meeting, or as speakers at other sessions of the Society’s national meetings.” Please take this opportunity to recognize your colleagues who have made special contributions over their careers to the field of accelerator radiation protection. As a further reminder, the following should be provided for each nominee: a short biographical resume of her/his career, reasons for the nominations, how the nomination will enhance the meeting’s program, and any bibliographical information that will help support the nominee’s past efforts. The complete package deadline will be on or about March 1, 2010 so we need to have one or more candidates firmly in place before then. Finally, the call for abstracts for the PEP and CEL sessions at the HPS Annual meeting has gone out. If you are interested in developing an accelerator sequence, it would be well to so indicate when you send in your abstracts: “Please submit (via email) your proposed topic, category (PEP or CEL), and an abstract by February 5, 2010 to: Thomas L. Morgan, Ph.D., CHP; Continuing Education Committee; Thomas_morgan@urmc.rochester.edu; 585-275-1473.” As for the Accelerator Sessions’ abstracts, please cc: me on your emailed submissions. Again, I hope to see you in Salt Lake City next summer!