For nearly a century RSNA has been uniting members of the radiology community by hosting a yearly meeting, which is now one of the largest annual medical conferences in the world.

It all began in 1915, when the Western Roentgen Society was established by radiologists Miles B. Titterington, Edwin C. Ernst, Gray C. Briggs and Fred S. O’Hara. That year the professional organization held its first annual meeting in mid- December at the Hotel Sherman in downtown Chicago. The gathering was attending by 62 charter members from more than a dozen states.

Subsequent meetings began to include scientific exhibits and paper presentations, also known as scientific sessions. In addition, radiological equipment manufacturers were asked show their new products during the conference. Nineteen commercial exhibitors displayed the latest X-raybased technology at the 1919 annual meeting, at which new bylaws of the society were read to the president and executive committee. That same year the organization changed its name to the Radiological Society of North America, due to the fact that its membership had expanded to include various regions of the continent.

Growth and crisis
Throughout the Roaring Twenties RSNA held its annual meetings in North American cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Rochester, Kansas City, Cleveland, Milwaukee, New Orleans and Toronto. Up until 1925 there were also mid-annual meetings, but those were discontinued for financial reasons. During the 1920s, the organization also began to branch out to European radiologists in order to acquire an international following. As each year went by, the number of attendees would increase.

In the depression-ridden 1930s, Donald Smythe Childs—an influential figure who held various positions within the organization—helped to rescue RSNA from an economic catastrophe. He also began to schedule the annual meeting during the last week in November in order to save the most amount of money for both the society and its members. During that decade, the yearly event was hosted in cities such as Los Angeles, St. Louis, Atlantic City, Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Atlanta.

Due to widespread financial woes during the ‘30s, the amount of people who attended the annual meetings had gone down. In an effort to boost attendance, in 1934 RSNA decisionmakers implemented a major annual lecture, which would recognize significant service to the field and would be delivered at a Plenary Session. Four years later the society decided that the annual meeting should also offer “refresher courses,” which would review already established radiological information.

RSNA helps the war effort
After the Great Depression wound down, the world watched as World War II began to unfold during the early 1940s. The theme surrounding the 1942 annual meeting was that of war; one page of the event’s program even encouraged attendees to collect scrap that could be used for the manufacturing of guns, ships and tanks.

In response to a request from the U.S. Office of Defense Transportation, the 1943 RSNA meeting was cancelled in order to save the country’s gasoline supply for the war. The organization was again asked to cancel the 1944 meeting, but they instead opted to collaborate with the American Roentgen Ray Society on hosting a joint meeting, at which the title of the annual oration—delivered by Lawrence Reynolds—was “History of the Use of the Roentgen Ray in Warfare.”

The 1945 annual meeting was, in part, a celebratory event, as that was the year the Second World War had finally come to an end. The following year’s meeting reflected major advancements in radiological technology and the growing distinction between diagnosis and therapy in radiology. In 1948, the society developed a separate physics program and physics-based “refresher courses” for the annual meetings. Towards the end of the decade, the annual meeting had become so large that it had clearly outgrown some of its previous venues, which during the 1940s were located in cities such as Cleveland, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston.

Post-war boom
At the beginning of the 1950s, paper presentations began to be grouped into large blocks of scientific sessions at the annual meeting. Due to the growing amount of presentations, each one was limited to a 20-minute timeframe with an additional 15 minutes worth of discussion time. By the middle of the decade, RSNA membership had grown to more than 2,500 and each meeting was becoming increasingly crowded. At this time the Chicago’s Palmer House hotel was becoming the preferred location to host the meeting. Other venues during the decade were located in Cincinnati and Los Angeles.

Donald S. Childs—who in addition to his other duties had been serving as the annual meeting planner— passed away in 1960. During the Annual Oration at the 1961 meeting, Lawrence L. Robbins, a past president of the society, honored Childs’ contribution to the society.

RSNA had nearly 4,200 members in 1963 and had become the largest scientific radiological organization in the world. That year’s meeting was held on the weekend before Thanksgiving, as opposed to the weekend after the holiday, which had become the norm.

In 1968 a carousel projector was first used at the meeting for dual projection and enhanced scientific presentations. As the decade came to a close, these projectors were being utilized by practically all of the refresher course instructors.

To McCormick Place
Aside from one year where the meeting was held in Cincinnati, RSNA continued to host its annual event at the Palmer House hotel throughout the 1960s. By the end of the decade, when attendance was approaching 7,000, it was becoming more and more apparent that the annual meeting would require a larger venue. In order to continue hosting their annual event at the Palmer House, RSNA was forced to restrict the growth of the meeting by excluding potential technical exhibitors.

During the early 1970s RSNA began to consider the idea of planning the annual meeting in a convention center in order to have more space, although that idea would take a few years to actually be carried out. Cramped quarters aside, the 1972 meeting would prove to be an important one since it featured the first exhibit of a CAT scanner, which went on to become an extremely important modality in the world of medical imaging.

Approximately 11,500 people attended the 1974 meeting. That conference— which featured 43,000 square feet worth of technical exhibits, 80 scientific exhibits, 183 paper presentations and 72 refresher courses—was the very last to take place at the Palmer House. The following year RSNA hosted its annual meeting at the McCormick Place convention center in Chicago. Much to the relief of society leaders, the gathering, which held 12,000 attendees, was a success.

Death in Atlanta
The three subsequent meetings were also held at McCormick Place in the 1970s. In 1979 the meeting was scheduled to be held in Atlanta, a city that was experiencing a high rate of crime at the time. Several months before the event, an RSNA member who was attending a Society of Nuclear Medicine meeting in Atlanta was shot and killed. After the incident RSNA members who feared for their safety asked the society to hold the meeting elsewhere or else cancel it altogether. The RSNA Board of Directors decided, instead, to request an increased presence of uniformed police officers surrounding the event. Their request was granted, and although there was a lower attendance that year, the meeting took place without any significant problems.

The 1980 annual meeting was held in Dallas and did not go as smoothly as society leaders would have hoped. Not only did unseasonable weather in cause snow to fall, but the city’s bus drivers had also decided to go on strike that week, making it difficult for attendees to get around.

Aside from the 1984 meeting that was held in Washington D.C., the rest of the meetings during the 1980s were once again held at McCormick Place. Around that time the society began to distribute official programs and saw an increased presence of international radiologists at the meetings. Towards the end of the decade, attendance at RSNA’s annual meeting was more than 40,000.

Continuing to expand
By this point the meeting was being held in a portion of the newly constructed North Building at McCormick
Place as well as in the original Lakeside Center; both buildings were connected by a walkway. Due to the overwhelming size of the event, the society started printing Walk through the Week, a brochure that outlined the scientific assembly based on subspecialty topics.

In 1990 the RSNA Scientific Assembly was considered the largest annual medical meeting in the world. That year’s conference introduced a concept and demonstration area for the display and hands-on use of computer-based education, research and practice-management programs and databases. The meeting also offered second-year residents an “Introduction to Research” course, which was co-sponsored by RSNA, the American Roentgen Ray Society and the Association of University Radiologists. Around the same time RSNA began to publish the Daily Bulletin, a newspaper that informed attendees of important events at the meeting.

At the 1992 meeting, infoRAD featured the first public presentation of a standard for digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM). The following meeting featured RSNAnet, a fiber optic communication link that allowed exhibitors to transmit radiologic images and other scientific information between the East and North buildings of McCormick Place. In 1994 more than 55,000 people attended the scientific assembly. Toward the latter part of the decade, RSNA annual meetings publications were available online, and the society began to accept electronic scientific abstracts of papers.

9/11 prompts questions
Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the RSNA board struggled to decide whether or not they should cancel the annual meeting, since such a large gathering could have potentially made attendees vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

They ultimately chose to go ahead with the meeting and attendance that year was lower as a result.

In 2002 the society fully succumbed to the digital revolution, which was the theme of that year’s event. At this point RSNA members could use the Internet to manage their profile, renew their membership, make a donation, submit scientific abstracts and register for annual meeting courses. At that year’s meeting there were presentations that discussed the prevalence of wireless and handheld technology in the field of medical imaging.

RSNA began to offer new courses on quality improvement and cardiac CT at the 2007 meeting. They also implemented a new program that would enhance the relationship between diagnostic radiology and radiation oncology. Also in 2007 the organization became more environmentally friendly by using more electronic files at the annual meeting, among other things. That year’s attendance was more than 62,501 and technical exhibits took up a total of 535,300 square feet.

At the 2008, 2009 and 2010 meetings, there were more than 2,400 scientific presentations and posters featuring the most recent trends in radiological research. There were also more than 1,800 education exhibits and informatics demonstrations.