by
Joanna Padovano, Reporter | November 19, 2012
From the November 2012 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
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.
