Vijay M. Rao, MD, the current president of the Radiological Society of North America, will deliver RSNA 18’s opening address with a salute to technology and the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI), the organization announced this week.

“The time has come for radiologists to position themselves to provide leadership in this driving field to the next level,” Rao said in an RSNA statement. “Radiologists will have to increase their knowledge of all aspects of diseases and data science aside from just the imaging aspects.”

She said radiologists need to harness advances in AI to improve quality of care within their practices and promote the recognition of imagers in the medical community.

Rao has been a member of the RSNA Board of Directors since 2011 and is the David C. Levin Professor and Chair of Radiology at Sidney Kimmel Medical College in Thomas Jefferson University, where she’s been employed since she completed her radiology residency there in 1978. She was the first female chair of a clinical department in Jefferson’s history—a milestone achieved in 2002—and is recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on head and neck imaging. 

RSNA’s annual symposium is set to take place Nov. 25 to Nov. 30 in Chicago.