Vancouver, BC – The Western Region Society of Nuclear Medicine (WRSNM) will honor Lalitha Ramanna, MD, from Providence Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance, CA and Jennifer Prekeges, Program Chair, Nuclear Medicine Technology at Bellevue College in Bellevue, Washington with the presentation of their Distinguished Service Award. The Award will be presented at the 2017 WRSNM Annual Meeting, November 3-5, 2017 at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver, BC. The WRSNM Distinguished Service Award is given annually at the WRSNM Meeting to a physician, physicist or scientist, or a Nuclear Medicine technologist based on the individual’s exceptional service to a Western Regional Chapter, to the WRSNM in general, or to the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI). As has been done in the past, awards will be given to two exceptional individuals in 2017, one to a physician and one to a technologist.
Dr. Ramanna is currently the director of Nuclear Medicine and PET services at Providence Little Company of Mary Hospital, Torrance, California. Chair of Radiation Safety Committee for the
hospital and also served as Radiation Safety Officer. She is a faculty volunteer as a Clinical Associate Professor at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California.
Doctor Ramanna completed her premedical college and medical school in Bombay, India. Following her internal medicine residency in Bombay, she was one of the early trainees in Nuclear Medicine, at Radiation Medicine Center , Tata Memorial Hospital in Bombay. She then had an opportunity to do an International Atomic Energy (IAEA) fellowship with George Taplin at UCLA and another year of Nuclear Medicine fellowship at Loma Linda University in California. She is board certified and recertified in Nuclear Medicine.
Dr. Ramanna is passionate about Nuclear Medicine applications in clinical practice and has extensive experience in diagnostic and therapeutic Nuclear Medicine. Over the years she has played an active role in local and National Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging (SNMMI) Societies. Among her achievements, she served as president of Correlative Imaging Council of SNMMI and organized number of CT learning courses for Nuclear Medicine professionals. She is a past member, PET Center of Excellence , SNMMI and current member of House of Delegates of SNMMI. She served as president of Los Angeles Radiologic Society( LARS) and president of Pacific Southwest Chapter of SNMMI.
Over the years she has given a number of talks related to Nuclear Medicine as well as organized number of conferences at local and national level including serving as Program Co-Chair for the Western Region SNM Annual Meeting in 2016 in Anaheim. She served on the American Board of Nuclear Medicine ( ABNM) and the Residency Review Committee ( RRC) for Nuclear Medicine. She also served as Nuclear Medicine Residency Program Director at Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California.
A prolific writer Doctor Ramanna has published in the areas of thyroid cancer and lung imaging.
Jennifer Prekeges received her BA in Biology and Chemistry from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She received her certificate in Nuclear Medicine Technology from the VA Medical Center in Portland, Oregon and a Masters in Radiological Sciences from the University of Washington.
From 1980 – 1985 Prekeges served as the staff nuclear medicine technologist at Providence Seattle Medical Center while also serving as Instructor, clinical coordinator and program chair at Seattle University from 1981 through 1989. From 1989 to 2003 she served as staff nuclear medicine technologist for Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle and in 1989 she was also named instructor and Program Chair for Bellevue College, the position she holds today.
An active volunteer, Prekeges is a member of the Curriculum Advisory Committee and Advisor to the Doc and Dents Club at Bellevue College. She is a Reviewer and Associate Editor for the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology and is a frequent member of committees related to technologist education for the SNMMI-TS. She was a member and secretary for the Nuclear Medicine Technology Certification Board and is currently a member of the Radiation Incident Support Team for the King County Public Health Medical Reserve Corp. Prekeges is a past president of the Technologist Section of the Pacific Northwest Chapter, SNMMI.
Prekeges is the sole author of the textbook Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation, published in first edition in 2011 and second edition in 2013. She intentionally wrote to the technologist student audience, with the thought that technologists need to understand the technology they are working with, and may someday be solely responsible for that technology.
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