Bianca Tester

DOS 771

April 24, 2018

Professional Service Learning Project

For my professional service learning project, I had the privilege to attend and volunteer at
the American Association of Medical Dosimetrist (AAMD) Spring 2018 Regional conference in
Denver, Colorado on April 20th-21st. The AAMD is an international society, whose goal is to
support the medical dosimetry profession, whether it’s through scholarships, or furthering
education through continuing education conferences. I was fortunate to attend the conference not
only to further my knowledge, but also to support many of my coworkers that were speakers at
the conference.

While attending the conference I had the pleasure of meeting a fellow classmate, Nancy
Gustafson, as well as two of my professors, Matt Tobler, and Gail VanDerbeck. This was my
first ever professional conference to attend and I wasn’t disappointed. Even though there was no
specific theme for the conference, quite a few lectures actually tied in together. Also, as I
mentioned earlier, quite a few of my coworkers spoke at the conference – in fact, they were 5 out
of the 14 speakers.

During the conference, Nancy and I worked together to pass around two scanners to scan
the attendees ID wrist badges. The purpose of the ID badges was to document who was present
for the lecture to receive continuing education (CE) credits. As I mentioned earlier, the
conference had no particular theme – the talks ranged from different treatment techniques, to
radiation hormesis. The lectures were 45 minutes per presentation, with 15 minutes at the end
for questions and answers. Thirty-minute breaks were also spread throughout for snacks and a
quick coffee refill.

Overall, I had a great experience at the AAMD Regional conference and am planning on
attending the annual conference this June, in Austin, Texas. I’m hoping to be able to attend as
many lectures as possible, meet new people in the field, and possibly make new friends and
networking opportunities. I’m also hoping to see demonstrations from more vendors to learn
about different treatment machines and software programs that I haven’t been exposed to so far.

Image 1. Program itinerary for the AAMD 2018 Spring Regional conference.

Image 2. Photo of myself with the ID scanner (orange wrist band on right wrist was scanned for
CE credits).