Welcome to Washington, DC!
Howard Sandler, MD, MS, FASTRO
I’m so pleased to welcome you to Washington, DC, for ASTRO’s 66th Annual Meeting. It has been a long time since the Annual Meeting has been in the nation’s capital and the first time we will occupy the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, located in the very center of Washington, DC. Walter E. Washington was the first mayor of Washington, DC, after the city was granted home rule by Congress in the early 1970s. He served as mayor from 1975-1979 and was fittingly honored by the DC City Council as the namesake of the District’s spectacular convention center in 2006. In a way, Washington, DC, is ASTRO’s “home,” given that ASTRO’s headquarters location is just across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia. ASTRO’s volunteers and staff advocate tirelessly for our Society in the halls of Capitol Hill throughout the year and particularly during our annual Advocacy Day, an activity that is worth attending if you have not done so yet.
The theme of this year’s meeting is “Targeting Provider Wellness for Exceptional Patient Care.” Through our attention to provider wellness and exploring the potential link between good provider wellness and good patient outcomes, we hope to encourage conversations about provider wellness and how a healthy balance between work, family and personal wellness can lead to enhanced outcomes for the patients that receive the treatments provided by radiation oncology.
Our annual ASTRO meeting is a rich source of activities including connecting with friends and members, attending educational sessions galore, learning from the more than 79 oral abstract sessions and 1,700 posters highlighting the latest relevant science, reviewing the latest technologies on display in the Exhibit Hall, and much more! As ASTRO’s President, I’m personally excited about this year’s Presidential Symposium. We’ve moved the timing of the Presidential Symposium to Sunday morning, and so this session kicks off this year’s Annual Meeting. Those of you who know me won’t be surprised to learn that this year’s session is devoted to GU Cancers, my area of clinical focus. We’ve broken the Symposium into three parts focusing on prostate, renal and bladder cancers with the mission of the Symposium to highlight new approaches for these three sites that are ready for clinical implementation now. So, we’ll be discussing developments such as microboost for prostate cancer, SBRT for primary renal cell cancer, and updated strategies for trimodality bladder preservation.
Two keynote talks will focus on our meeting theme. Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, is a practicing physician and author at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital. Dr. Ofri brings a unique perspective on the challenges and solutions related to physician well-being. Her discussion will focus on the importance of humanism in medicine, the impact of technology on physician-patient relationships, and strategies for preventing burnout. Bryan Sexton, PhD, is the Director of the Duke Center for Healthcare Safety and Quality. He leads the efforts around research and training that guide quality improvement and well-being activities. He is a psychologist and psychometrician and spends time developing methods of assessing and improving safety culture, teamwork, leadership and especially workforce well-being.
I look forward to convening for ASTRO’s 66th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC. See you there!
