ISMRM Annual Meeting Singapore 2016: Go or No?

The 2016 ISMRM Annual Meeting is being held in Singapore, which is great news for us in this region. But is it worth going to? It depends….

I have been to a number of ISMRM meetings over the years and it’s a huge meeting, but the difficulty from a radiologist’s perspective, is that it is not specifically a meeting for radiologists focused on clinical MRI. It covers all aspects of MRI particularly the one that most radiologists want little to do with, physics! It is so wide in its coverage; I have never had a clear idea of who it is actually aimed at. And that’s because it’s not really aimed at a particular group. So, it’s difficult to be everything and please everyone. There are specific categorical sessions in Neuro, MSK and Body MRI that are aimed at radiologists, but they are often at a level that will not suit radiologists with limited MRI experience.

So, as a radiologist wanting to focus on the day-to-day clinical applications of MRI, is it worth going to the 2016 ISMRM Annual Meeting? If you have mid to high level MRI experience its worth attending if the course programme is of interest to you (link to preliminary programme here). The good thing is that they do indicate on their programme what level of experience the talks are aimed at. I don’t think it’s a conference that would suit radiologists with limited MRI experience as the purpose of the conference is not to teach the foundations of clinical MRI. So, you need to know where your level of experience is and what you want to get out of the meeting, before you decide whether it’s worth going to or not.