1

Nathan Jones
December 3, 2019
Professional Service Project
During this final semester I was able to attend and offer my assistance at the annual
AAMD meeting at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Niagara Falls New York. This regional
meeting is a great opportunity for radiation oncology professionals to congregate to receive and
share information regarding current events in the field of dosimetry.
During the meeting, I was assigned the task of running microphones to speakers in the
crowd following each presentation. I shared this responsibility with a fellow classmate Amy
Herman. I was also pleased to meet up with Neil Joyce as well as two additional classmates,
Makelle Barski and Madeline Doberstein, who also attended the conference in a volunteering
capacity. Neil was in charge of signing in registrants and supplying them with their
identification as well as information pertinent to the meeting. Makelle and Madeline were
assigned the task of scanning each attendee’s identification bracelet to verify their participation
in each lecture.
What I anticipated as being a very easy, straight-forward volunteering task ended up
being a bit challenging. Many people were very eager to speak up without the microphone, often
having conversations with others across the auditorium which would require a team of world
class sprinters to supply them with microphones in a timely manner. Amy and I enjoyed the task
and did our best to facilitate each question and answer session. We also were able to help out
with taking attendance during “break-out” sessions in which the main group was broken down
into smaller lectures with different topics to choose from. There was a lack of volunteers to
cover each separate session, so Amy and I were glad to fill in when needed.
Volunteering at this event in particular was very rewarding for me personally. I have
attended this meeting as an attendant several times, but never as a volunteer. It was great to
interact with my fellow classmates outside of school and get to know them in person. I also
enjoyed being able to assist in this conference in an attempt to give back in a small capacity to an
event that I benefit from annually. I am very grateful for the Roswell Park conference and will
continue to attend both as a participant and volunteer in the future.
2
3
4