RSNA 2019 in Chicago: Attendance Dips Slightly, But Vendor Participation Is Up

Dec. 2, 2019

On Monday morning at Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center, attendance at the annual RSNA Conference had dipped slightly compared to last year, while vendor participation had surged

Mark Hagland

Attendance at the annual RSNA Conference, sponsored by the Oak Brook, Ill.-based Radiological Society of North America, and being held this week at Chicago’s vast McCormick Place Convention Center, dropped slightly this year in relation to the attendance recorded at recent previous RSNA Conferences.

As of Monday, total advance registration for this conference, which brings together professionals connected to radiology from all over the world, was recorded at 47,011, with 21,837 professional registrants. That represents a 3.3 percent drop from the 48,615 level of attendants, with 22,914 professional registrants, on this day last year in 2018. In 2017 and 2016, the figures were 48,445 (with 23,097 professional registrants), and 48,888 (with 23,656 professional registrants), respectively.

Meanwhile, 789 companies are exhibiting this year, representing a 13.8-percent jump over the 693 that exhibited last year. In 2017 and 2016, those figures were 667 and 691, respectively.

As always, a slight increase in attendees is expected through Monday and Tuesday. The conference began with opening sessions and presentations on Sunday and runs through Friday.

Change certainly is in the air this year at McCormick Place. As Lynn Antonopoulos reported in the RSNA Daily Bulleting, RSNA President Valerie P. Jackson, M.D. told attendees on Sunday that “We have both the opportunity and capacity to forge a new level of connection with our patients, and it will be a huge benefit to do so. But to get there,” Dr. Jackson said during her President’s Address in the Aire Crown Theater on Sunday morning, “we need to look at patient interaction in new ways—from a variety of perspectives.”

As Antonopoulos reported, Dr. Jackson emphasized the importance and value of increased patient interaction, and called on her colleagues to step out of the seclusion of the reading room, saying, “For time-pressed radiologists, human connection reminds us of how critical our work is to real people, and gets us back to our Hippocratic roots as physicians.”