In June of 2020 during the height of the pandemic, ARRT published proposals for public comment from the professional community about discontinuing acceptance of CE for preparing and delivering presentations, both oral and written. Why? The Board of Trustees state they received a great deal of feedback and decided that effective January 1, 2022, ARRT will stop accepting CE credits for preparing and delivering presentations. They will continue to review CE policies for writing and publishing peer-reviewed journal articles and will let technologists know what further actions will take place.
I agree with one of my mentors who said “Presenters spend months working on their presentations, and that’s not worthy of credit? But, someone can attend the session and play on their phone, sleep, or read a magazine, and they get credit!” I’ve been teaching continuing education for twenty-five years, so trust me when I say it takes a great deal of research to prepare a lecture that can stand up to the scrutiny of our peers. So, what am I missing? It seems like this decision is counter intuitive to encouraging development of CE opportunities from technologists.
I’m sure this feels like a slap in the face to the countless educators that tirelessly produce CE content. I’ve worked very hard fostering some of the most brilliant and engaging faculty in the country, only to tell them they can’t get CE credit for their hard work preparing outstanding CE content.
On a positive note, ARRT received enough feedback from our professional community to force another look at the extensive research involved in peer-reviewed journal articles. If radiologic technologists are ever going to truly be identified as professionals, we must stand up for those of us who choose to advance our practice. To truly be leaders in the imaging sciences, we must research technologist’s practice and opinions and use those to affect positive change. Every technologist that strives to improve our profession, needs to support the research and journal writing of our peers.
If you’d like to take action, send your opinions to the ARRT at 1255 Northland Drive, St. Paul, MN. 55120, Attn: Board of Trustees or call and leave a message at 651-687-0048.
Do we know how other professions have dealt with this issue? I have heard other Medical professions have done the same thing. What was the reasoning or problem? Was their fraud by authors. Do they believe CE credit is only for the attendee? I gave CE lectures for 20+ years. By giving author CE credits, I felt I was encouraged by ARRT for the hours spent preparing, researching, designing, practicing, and then driving for my talk.
I feel at this time with covid and the limited seminars we are not allowed to go to, I feel it is a very good source to continue getting credits. I would rather attend a seminar in my home town or on Zoom. I feel I can visualize the content more than reading and looking at pictures which are hard to see detail from a magazine reading. If AART is so worried about our credits then I feel every hospital or clinic so provide us with lectures
we work at. We are the ones paying out of our pockets for continuing education and we should make the decision of how we can educate whether it be in our homes knowing we are safe and when our nation comes to reopening then we can go to seminars in state or out of state. Reading is boring to me and I’m don’t feel I learn more. I have been in my field since 1975 and working as of today.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Billingsley RTR, (M) (ASRT) (OSRT) (OBRT)
I sadly did not get a chance to offer input before this occurred and wonder how many others also did not know of this change bu are ARRT registered. I also am an educator and pride myself on the value of the CE programs I have produced. So if it makes a difference at this point I offer the following rational refute – if my program is good enough to pass the RCEEM review and provide attendees with credit it makes not sense not to provide CE for the presenter (originator).