Newswise — Fairfax, Va., July 16, 2015 – The American Society for Radiation Oncology’s (ASTRO’s) members have elected three new officers to the Board of Directors and three members to serve on the Nominating Committee. Terms for all positions begin at the Annual Business Meeting on Tuesday, October 20, 2015 at 11:30 a.m. Central time, at ASTRO’s 57th Annual Meeting at the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio. The new officers to the Board of Directors are:President-electBrian D. Kavanagh, MD, MPH, FASTRO, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver
Health Policy Council Vice-chairMichael R. Kuettel, MD, PhD, MBA, FASTRO, Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, N.Y.
Science Council Vice-chairDaniel Low, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles
“Congratulations to Drs. Kavanagh, Kuettel and Low. They each bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise that will strengthen ASTRO’s ability to lead our specialty,” said Bruce G. Haffty, MD, FASTRO, chair of ASTRO’s Board of Directors. “As we navigate through the challenging transition to a value-based health care infrastructure, these new leaders will direct ASTRO’s efforts to continue to provide substantive and meaningful dialogue and evidence to ensure the clinical excellence, quality, safety and efficacy of radiation therapy.”
Dr. Kavanagh is professor and interim chair of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver, and an attending physician at the University of Colorado Hospital. Kavanagh is an active clinician with a primary focus on stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) and population data-based health services research. He is Co-Director of the ASTRO-AANS Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) Registry, and he has served ASTRO as a member of the Board of Directors (2011 to 2015) as the Vice-chair and then the Chair of the Health Policy Council; as Chair of the Payment Reform Task Group; and as a member of the Health Policy Council Regulatory Committee, the Communications Committee, the Clinical Affairs and Quality Committee, and the Code Development and Valuation Committee. His additional service has included the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Outpatient Payment Advisory Panel and the Ambulatory Payment Classification (APC) Advisory Panel, as well as a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s (NCCN) Policy Advisory Group.
In addition to his role in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of Colorado, Kavanagh serves as an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Science at the Colorado State University School of Veterinary Medicine, and as a consulting physician for Denver Health Medical Center and the Denver VA Medical Center. Before joining the University of Colorado in 2001, Kavanagh was associate professor at the Medical College of Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Kavanagh earned his medical degree in 1988 from Tulane University School of Medicine, his Master of Public Health degree from the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, and his Bachelor of Science degree (summa cum laude) in biomedical engineering from the Tulane School of Engineering, New Orleans. He completed his residency in radiation oncology at Duke University Medical Center as an American Cancer Society Clinical Oncology Fellow and served his internship in internal medicine at The Charity Hospital of Louisiana. Dr. Kuettel is professor and chair of the Department of Radiation Medicine and The Barbara C. and George H. Hyde Chair in Radiation Medicine at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo; professor and chairman of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo; and clinical director of radiation oncology at Kaleida Health System, Buffalo. He continues to oversee clinical care for patients with a particular interest in the treatment of prostate cancer and is a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network’s (NCCN’s) Board of Directors. Kuettel’s service to ASTRO includes his current roles as co-chair of the Health Policy Committee and as the ASTRO Advisor to the American Medical Association (AMA)/Specialty Society RVS Update Committee (RUC). His previous ASTRO roles include as a member of the Clinical Affairs & Quality Committee, the Medicare Evidence Development Coverage Advisory Committee and the Regulatory Committee; as Chair of the Code Development and Valuation Committee; as Vice-chair of the Payment Systems Committee; and as the ASTRO Representative to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Advisory Panel on the Ambulatory Payment Classification Group.
Prior to joining Roswell Park Cancer Institute and SUNY in 1999, Kuettel was associate professor in the Department of Radiation Medicine and the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington. He earned his medical degree in 1985 at Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, a Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University School of Business and a PhD in anatomy and cell biology from the Medical College of Wisconsin. Kuettel completed his radiation oncology residency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, and his residency in internal medicine at Northwestern University Hospital, Chicago. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in molecular oncology at Northwestern University Medical School.
Dr. Low is a professor in radiation oncology and vice-chair of medical physics in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and currently serves ASTRO as a member of the Funding Advocacy and Clinical Trials Committee, the Best Practices Subcommittee and the Multidisciplinary Quality Assurance Subcommittee. Previously, he served ASTRO as chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Trials Committee; as a member of the Science Council Steering Committee, the Monitoring Subcommittee of the Emerging Technology Steering Committee, the Government Relations Committee, the Radiation Physics Committee, the NIH Government Relations Subcommittee and the Grassroots State Captain Initiative for the Government Relations Council. Low’s research interests include modeling and measurement of human breathing motion, developing novel methods for improving the safety of radiation therapy and quality assurance, and the use of magnetic resonance imaging in treatment planning and dose delivery verification for radiation therapy.
Low began his career as an instructor in radiology at Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology at Washington University, St. Louis, in 1991, and advanced through multiple positions to professor in radiation oncology and professor of biomedical engineering at Washington University. He joined UCLA in 2010, and serves as both a professor in radiation oncology and the director of medical physics, as well as Chair of UCLA’s Radiation Oncology Academic Affairs Committee, and as a member of the Radiation Safety Oversight Committee and the Medical Physics Residency Committtee. Low earned his PhD in experimental nuclear physics and his Master of Science degree in physics at Indiana University, Bloomington, Ind.; he also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in physics at Occidental College, Los Angeles. Low was a Postdoctoral Fellow in radiation therapy physics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston.
ASTRO’s Nominating Committee is responsible for preparing a slate of nominees for each elective position of ASTRO due to be filled that year. The committee consists of 12 members: the immediate past chair of the Board of Directors, the five Council chairs and six elected members. The six elected members of the committee serve staggered three-year terms. Three elected positions on the Nominating Committee were due to be filled this year. The new Nominating Committee members are:
Nominating Committee Academic PhysicianQuynh-Thu Le, MD, FASTRO, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.
Nominating Committee Community Practice PhysicianJohn W. Rieke, MD, MultiCare Regional Cancer Center, South Puget Sound, Wash.
Nominating Committee PhysicistIndrin J. Chetty, PhD, MS, Henry Ford Health System, Detroit
For more information about ASTRO’s 57th Annual Meeting, visit www.astro.org/AnnualMeeting.
For press registration and policies for ASTRO’s 57th Annual Meeting, visit www.astro.org/AMPress.
ABOUT ASTROASTRO is the premier radiation oncology society in the world, with more than 10,000 members who are physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, dosimetrists and other health care professionals that specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies. As the leading organization in radiation oncology, the Society is dedicated to improving patient care through professional education and training, support for clinical practice and health policy standards, advancement of science and research, and advocacy. ASTRO publishes two medical journals, International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (www.redjournal.org) and Practical Radiation Oncology (www.practicalradonc.org); developed and maintains an extensive patient website, www.rtanswers.org; and created the Radiation Oncology Institute (www.roinstitute.org), a non-profit foundation to support research and education efforts around the world that enhance and confirm the critical role of radiation therapy in improving cancer treatment. To learn more about ASTRO, visit www.astro.org.###
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