ACR launches 100th anniversary celebration with Centennial Gala

The American College of Radiology® (ACR®) Centennial Gala, held May 6, kicked off the College’s celebration of a century of quality, integrity, leadership and innovation. More than 800 members attended the event, a crown jewel of the ACR 2023 Annual Meeting, May 6–10, in Washington, DC.

“I urge all members attending ACR 2023 and across the U.S. to join in celebrating our shared history and engage in our plans for an even brighter future,” said Jacqueline A. Bello, MD, FACR, chair, ACR Board of Chancellors.

Marking the College’s 100th anniversary, the gala is the first of many activities throughout 2023 and 2024 to recognize and celebrate the world-changing achievements and contributions of ACR and its members.

For example, the College gained passage of the landmark Mammography Quality Standards Act, founded medical imaging and radiation oncology facility accreditation and ACR Appropriateness Criteria®, released the Patterns of Care Study and managed the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) to improve and advance quality in radiation oncology, and co-founded the Image Gently and Image Wisely® campaigns to improve quality, avoid unnecessary scans and optimize imaging radiation dose.

ACR membership has grown from approximately 20 at its founding, to 8,500 on its 50th anniversary, and now stands at 42,000. ACR members aided the development, clinical evaluation and proliferation of computed tomography (CT), digital breast tomosynthesis (3D mammography), proton therapy, intensity-modulated radiation therapy and stereotactic radiotherapy, as well as new treatments for stroke, uterine fibroids and a host of other diseases, illnesses and injuries.

“The ACR and its members have been at the heart of countless innovations that have advanced patient care,” said Jim Borgstede, MD, FACR, co-chair of the ACR Centennial Steering Committee. “This is our time to celebrate those achievements together as we continue to move medicine forward.”

Notable radiology achievements:

• The New England Journal of Medicine named medical imaging one of the top 10 medical advances of the last 500 years, and doctors consider scans the most valuable of medical innovations.
• Medical imaging exams are directly linked to greater life expectancy, declines in mortality rates, and are generally safer and less expensive than the invasive procedures they replace.
• Scans reduce the number of invasive surgeries, unnecessary hospital admissions and length of hospital stays.
• National cancer death rates continue to drop as radiation therapy, a standard of care for many cancer types, and other treatments continue to advance.

“ACR member leaders, volunteers and staff continue to work together to strengthen radiology practice and science,” said Catherine Everett, MD, MBA, FACR, co-chair of the ACR Centennial Steering Committee. “We look forward to being at the heart of advancements to improve health equity, quality, delivery and patient outcomes in the next 100 years.”

Visit the ACR Centennial Celebration section of the ACR website for more information — including a special 100th anniversary interactive timeline featuring milestones in ACR history. ACR members can upload comments and/or videos to the ACR Historical Timeline by clicking “Share Your Voice.”

ACR Centennial Gala Sponsors:

• Premier — Siemens Healthineers
• Gold — GE Healthcare, Weill Cornell Medicine Radiology and ZOTEC Partners®
• Silver — Bayer, BRACCO, KA Imaging, Medimaps Group, Nuance and United Imaging
• Bronze — Dextro Imaging Solutions, The Texas Radiological Society and HOLOGIC