A health physicist specialist at Rush University Medical Center recently was named the 2020-21 president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging Technologist Section.
Tina M. Buehner, MS, CNMT, NMTCB(CT)(RS), RT(N)(CT), FSNMMI-TS, was introduced as president with the new slate of officer during the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging’s 2020 annual meeting, which was held virtually from July 11 through 14.
With more than 20 years of experience as a nuclear medicine technologist, Buehner has been a health physicist specialist at Rush since May 2019. She previously worked as the manager of nuclear medicine/nuclear cardiology at Loyola University Health System’s Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park, Illinois, for five years. She also was a staff technologist and clinical educator at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago for 14 years.
“As SNMMI-TS president, my goal is to promote clinical excellence by working closely with leadership to continue to develop, translate and communicate standards for quality in clinical practice, as well as ensuring that technologists have pathways to obtain the skill set necessary to perform the tasks required of them,” Buehner said.
Buehner is currently the director-at-large on the SNMMI Board of Directors and has served as a delegate on the SNMMI House of Delegates since 2011. She also has served on the SNMMI-TS National Council of representatives since 2011 and has been on the SNMMI-TS Awards, Grants and Scholarships committee since 2010.
Outside of SNMMI, Buehner has served on the Nuclear Medicine Technology Certification Board since 2015 and was the SNMMI-TS representative to the Associated Sciences Committee for the Radiological Society of North America in 2016-2017.
Buehner was named a fellow of SNMMI-TS in 2015. She was accepted to and completed the Society of Nuclear Medicine (SNM)/IBA Leadership Academy in 2010. She won Northwestern Memorial Hospital’s Employee Excellence Award in 2010 and the SNM’s Paul Cole Scholarship in 2001. Her publications include five journal articles, two book chapters and many invited speaker presentations.
She completed her bachelor’s degree in health arts and a master’s degree in health services administration at the University of St. Francis in Joliet, Illinois. Buehner is passionate about research and is currently in the last semester of a doctoral program in health sciences at Rush University.
She currently holds professional board certifications from the NMTCB in nuclear medicine technology, computed tomography, and radiation safety and from the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists in nuclear medicine and computed tomography.
As president, Buehner is looking to further educational options and work with other societies to expand patient care.
“There is always room to enhance communications, educational offerings, advocacy and research support,” she said. “In the rapidly evolving field of nuclear medicine, I also firmly believe in sharing knowledge and working together with related societies and the international community to bring patients state-of-the-art imaging and precision therapies.”