Medical Image Perception Society (MIPS) XX - The Medical Image Perception Society (MIPS) was founded as a non-profit organization in 1997 after a series of meetings (Far West Image Perception Conference) that started in 1983 to understand the perceptual factors that underlie the construction and interpretation of medical images for the purposes of improving diagnostic accuracy, reducing missed detections, and identifying the causes of reader error. MIPS XX will bring together an international community of experts including radiologists, pathologists, other image-based clinicians, psychologists, statisticians, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists who all seek to investigate the extraction of diagnostic information from medical images. This highly interdisciplinary meeting attracts attendees from all research career stages and offers unique research and learning opportunities for new trainees and young researchers in a dedicated forum unmatched by other meetings. MIPS XX is being organized by the Medical Image Perception Society (a US-based society; Elizabeth Krupinski, PhD President) in conjunction with local host Frank Tong, PhD, and will take place August 6-9, 2024 at Vanderbilt University. Nine topic areas have been selected for MIPS XX, reflecting important dimensions of medical image interpretation. This year’s special focus themes reflect current trends in medical imaging 1) Improving Diagnostic & Screening Performance (or outcomes) in Medical Imaging Using Human & Machine Expertise (e.g., AI, deep learning) and 2) Technological & Human Interventions for Enhancing Medical Image Perception. Studying how clinicians extract diagnostic information from images identifies the causes of missed diagnoses and ways to eliminate these errors. Careful design and evaluation of imaging systems are critical in view of their enormous costs. With the current emphasis in the practice of medicine on developing computer-based tools (e.g., AI, deep learning) to improve detection and diagnosis, the role of the clinician as both end-user and ultimate decision-maker cannot be ignored. Medical image perception research develops and applies modern methods of vision science, cognitive science, image analysis, and advanced statistical and computational modeling to the evaluation of observer performance in diagnostic imaging tasks. Understanding fundamental aspects of the perception of medical images can reduce diagnostic error and improve medical decision-making quality. This R13 grant will support 10 graduate, undergraduate or post-doctoral trainees to attend and present their research at MIPS XX. To date, 128 (~40% women & ~40% underrepresented minorities) students have been awarded scholarships to attend past MIPS meetings and the majority have gone on to pursue future studies and careers in academia and industry. The primary goal in supporting these students is to create opportunities and offer supportive mentoring at this formative stage in the trainee’s career to enhance their research potential and likelihood of success as independent basic science and clinician-scientist researchers.
