By Lauren Del Sarto
This October, Desert Medical Imaging (DMI) is bringing experts from around the world together for a three-day symposium on prostate MRI and MR guided intervention. The educational event will be held on October 5-7 in Palm Springs at a new interactive learning facility opened last year by USCAP, an international pathology education organization.
Located on South Palm Canyon Drive, USCAP’s Linder Learning Center and the Powers-Sanchez Interactive Center offer a beautiful conference theater, production studio with live streaming capabilities, and an interactive microscopy lab.
“This state-of-the-art facility brings learning to a whole new level,” says Bernadette Greenwood, DMI’s Chief Research Officer and event co-director. “Participants will be able to view actual human biopsies on-site while two world-renowned pathologists, Doctors Theo Van der Kwast and Donna Hansel are interpreting the specimens, and it will all be broadcast to participants around the globe.”
The first day of the symposium will cover topics such as the evolution of MR-guided intervention, analysis tools, and techniques and strategies for achieving the best possible targeting of prostate cores. Featured speakers include Rajan T. Gupta, MD, of Duke University; Daniel Margolis, MD, of Weill Cornell; and DMI Medical Director and Founder John Feller, MD. The second day takes place at DMI in Indian Wells where participants will actually observe two human MRI-guided biopsies performed on volunteering patients and streamed live. The third day all return to the interactive lab for the interpretations and additional panel discussions.
Targeting all within the multidisciplinary prostate cancer management team, the educational conference offers CME credits for physicians and ARRT credit for technologists. There are various levels of registration, and special features include ten premium tickets for dinner and one-on-one interaction with speakers and attending faculty at La Valerice restaurant.
Greenwood adds that the symposium would not have the cutting-edge programming or global reach without the capabilities of the learning center which was the brain child of Palm Springs resident David Kaminsky, MD, USCAP executive vice president. “When I saw this space, I knew that between the view and the resort destination, it would be an ideal place to build this unique and innovative learning center,” says Kaminsky who believes that personalized medicine begins with personalized learning. “People who come here have the opportunity to unite with those who are revered as top in their sub-specializations and to work in a very intimate, mentoring environment with the latest equipment.” Content can be transmitted digitally in 4K to participants all over the world (up to 100 remote locations simultaneously) with quality so precise, it’s as if you were looking in the microscope yourself.
“An interactive microscopy laboratory united digitally with a conference center and broadcast studio for the purpose of education is unique in America,” Kaminsky adds. “For the people who have the time and money to travel to Palm Springs, of course, that onsite experience is immeasurable, but the next best thing is what we are able to offer through this global outreach endeavor. I think we are really accomplishing what we all want to do as educators and that is to optimize patient care by optimizing what we teach to those doctors who bring it.”
DMI Prostate MRI and MR-Guided Intervention in the Desert 2017 is one of many educational events taking place at the center. “This facility certainly benefits the community socioeconomically,” says Kaminsky, “but it also identifies Palm Springs as an area from which global medicine is going to make its name.”
DMI Prostate MRI and MR-Guided Intervention takes place October 5-7. For registration and information, visit www.desertmedicalimaging.com or call (760) 694.9559. For more information on USCAP’s Linder Learning Center, visit www.interactive.uscap.org.
