ASNC Names Dr. E. Gordon DePuey as President for 2014

Dr. DePuey assumed presidency of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC), January 1, 2014

Dr. E. Gordon DePuey, Director of Nuclear Medicine at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City, will oversee ASNC's well-established strengths including practice guidelines for patient-centered imaging, quality assurance, education, research and innovation, and advocacy -- areas he sees growth for the organization and the field of nuclear cardiology.

After several years of development under the guidance of past presidents, ASNC intends to launch ImageGuide, the nuclear cardiology registry. This registry will allow ASNC to gather vital information regarding the practice of nuclear cardiology and provide feedback to practitioners regarding their performance in comparison to imaging guidelines and the performance of their peers. The registry is also designed to satisfy regulatory requirements such as PQRS, which should provide nuclear cardiologists the opportunity to maximize reimbursement and avoid penalties.

Under Dr. DePuey's leadership, ASNC will continue to strongly promote the Appropriate Use Criteria and Patient-Centered Imaging. The Quality Improvement Committee has taken on the task of revising many of the Society's guidelines this year to optimize image quality, reduce radiation dose, and enhance patient care. These guidelines will be emphasized in an expansion of ASNC's educational offerings to nuclear cardiologists, technologists, referring physicians and patients, particularly web-based offerings. He feels that many of these objectives can be abetted through a multimodality approach to cardiac imaging and collaboration with other societies.

In an address that the 2013 ASNC Annual Meeting, Dr. DePuey stated, "There is the potential for incredible growth of Nuclear Cardiology in the developing world due to a high incidence of coronary artery disease risk factors combined with severely limited availability and underutilization of instrumentation and radiopharmaceuticals." Through collaborating with organizations such as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the World Federation of Nuclear Medicine and Biology (WFNMB), and the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI), ASNC has the potential to foster the growth and quality of nuclear cardiology worldwide.

Dr. DePuey, a long-standing member of ASNC, has been a Fellow of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology since 2006, and has served on the Board of Directors, numerous committees, the Journal of Nuclear Cardiology editorial board, and the Executive Council. It is with great pleasure that we announce his role as ASNC's President for 2014.