New SCCT president takes office, lists priorities
The Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography (SCCT) announced that Maros Ferencik, MD, PhD, has officially started his 2024-2025 term as the organizaton's president. He is known for making significant contributions to many cardiac CT studies over the years.
Ferencik is a professor of medicine and radiology and section head of cardiovascular imaging at Oregon Health and Sciences University. He has published more than 300 papers, book chapters, abstracts and other scientific contributions, and presented at numerous major scientific meetings worldwide. He has participated in many large multicenter clinical trials, including ROMICAT I, ROMICAT II, PROMISE and the Framingham Heart Study. In these, he focused on detection and characterization of high-risk coronary atherosclerosis, assessment of coronary calcium, improvement of the diagnostic accuracy of CT for the diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome and the prognosis of future cardiovascular events.
"I joined the group in Spring of 2002 when cardiac CT was becoming a thing. That's really where cardiac CT started, and I was lucky to join the group that was at that point bringing this modality to the United States," Ferencik said in a statement.
He succeeds Immediate Past President Ed Nicol, MD, honorary consultant at both the Royal Brompton and Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals in London.
SCCT goals over the next year
Ferencik listed several goals he has for the next year. This includes helping the society’s junior members by prioritizing efforts in mentorship, education and collaborative support for the next generation of cardiac imagers. He also wants to expand the society’s geographic reach to global communities outside the U.S. and Europe and enhance SCCT’s educational offerings.
Advocating for fair reimbursement will be another priority for Ferencik. Additionally, SCCT may help develop potential new pathways to cardiology certification through the new American Board of Cardiovascular Medicine currently being developed.
“We'll have to navigate these waters and make sure that, for those who are in cardiology, we are fairly and well represented at the level of the American College of Cardiology (ACC). And for our members that are also certified in cardiology, provide a training pathway that's supportive of their needs, whether it's in CT or in other imaging modalities,” he said. “At the same time, what is very important for our society is to also take into account that we have members from radiology, and non-cardiologists and non-radiologists who perform cardiovascular CT. We are a society that represents all of them, so to make sure that while we are making changes to the board exams or training requirements, this reflects the needs of all our members, not only cardiologists.”
Ferencik is a founding member of SCCT, and when he joined the imaging program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Harvard Medical School, he worked alongside cardiac CT pioneers, SCCT past presidents and award recipients such as Stephan Achenbach, MD; Koen Nieman, MD, PhD; Udo Hoffmann, MD, MPH; Tom Brady, MD; Suhny Abbara, MD; and Ricardo Cury, MD.
In the society he has served as chair of the SCCT Fellows and Residents in Training Committee, the Membership Committee and as a member of the Education Committee before being elected to the Executive Committee.
Other SCCT leaders also announced
The society also announced its new 2024-2025 SCCT Executive Committee and Board members.
Executive Committee:
President: Maros Ferencik, MD, PhD, MSCCT
President-Elect: Kavitha Chinnaiyan, MD, MSCCT
Immediate Past President: Ed Nicol, MD, MBA, MSCCT
Vice President: Ronen Rubenshtein, MD, FSCCT
Treasurer: Kelley Branch, MD, MSc, FSCCT
Secretary: Cristina Fuss, MD, PhD, FSCCT
Member at Large: Ahmad Slim, MD, FSCCT
SCCT 2024-2025 Board Members:
Anjali Chelliah, MD, FSCCT
Marcus Chen, MD
Sandeep Hedgire, MD, FSCCT
Jill Jacobs, MD, MS-HQSM, FSCCT
Lynne Koweek, MD, FSCCT
Omar Khalique, MD, FSCCT
Sandeep Hedge, MD, FSCCT
Pal Maurovich-Horvat, MD, PhD, MPH, FSCCT
Ming-Yen Ng, BMedSci, BMBS, FSCCT
Barbara Srichai-Parsia, MD, FSCCT
Nikkole Weber, RT(R), (CT), CSCCT
Jonathan Weir-McCall, MD, FSCCT
Michelle Williams, MD, PhD, FSCCT
Pamela Woodard, MD, MSCCT (current president of the American College of Radiology)
Dave Fornell has covered healthcare for more than 17 years, with a focus in cardiology and radiology. Fornell is a 5-time winner of a Jesse H. Neal Award, the most prestigious editorial honors in the field of specialized journalism. The wins included best technical content, best use of social media and best COVID-19 coverage. Fornell was also a three-time Neal finalist for best range of work by a single author. He produces more than 100 editorial videos each year, most of them interviews with key opinion leaders in medicine. He also writes technical articles, covers key trends, conducts video hospital site visits, and is very involved with social media. E-mail: dfornell@innovatehealthcare.com