RSNA Press Release

OAK BROOK, Ill. (September 2, 2008) - Kitt Shaffer, M.D., Ph.D., from Cambridge Health Alliance, will bring her medical expertise to China as part of the International Visiting Professor Program offered by the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The program fosters international relations among radiology societies to assist with medical education in developing and newly developed nations.

Dr. Shaffer, director of radiology education for Cambridge Health Alliance, will be joined by one other fellow radiologist as she embarks Sept. 4 on the 15-day trip. She will spend her visit giving presentations and teaching intensive seminars to members of Chinese radiology societies and hospital radiology departments.

The program is mutually beneficial. The visiting team of radiologists informs local doctors and hospitals about the latest advances in diagnostic and therapeutic radiology. In turn, the visiting professors experience firsthand the obstacles faced by medical professionals in the host countries.

"The Visiting Professor Program is important to me because it gives me the opportunity to gain an international perspective on my profession," said Dr. Shaffer. "I am also hoping that teaching in these venues will help me to understand what aspects of the education of radiologists are universal, independent of particular cultural situations or disease entities."

Dr. Shaffer is accompanied by Yvonne W. Lui, M.D., of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y. Locations of the presentations in China include the Huashan Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai and the Beijing Hospital of Health Ministry of China.

The International Visiting Professors Program was founded in 1986 and is administered by RSNA's Committee on International Relations and Education (CIRE).

RSNA is an association of more than 41,000 radiologists, radiation oncologists, medical physicists and related scientists committed to excellence in patient care through education and research. The Society is based in Oak Brook, Ill. (RSNA.org)

The RSNA Committee on International Relations and Education was established in 1986 to advise the RSNA on how the Society might provide international assistance to enhance radiologic education in countries requesting and requiring assistance. (RSNA.org/International/CIRE)