2023 COMP Mammography Workshop

Digital Breast Tomosynthesis and Other Topics

The Mammography Workshop is designed to serve our diverse membership (both in modality and geography) and will present a mix of fundamentals, cutting edge research, and new imaging technologies.  Lectures will be delivered by internationally renowned faculty and will be held in English, via zoom.  Dr. Peter Watson and Alain Gauvin are leading this initiative. 

Participation is open to everyone, with discounts available for COMP members.

Objectives: This workshop will help attendees to:

• Understand the image acquisition process of digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT).
• Identify the considerations in DBT/synthetic 2D image quality and artifacts.
• Understand the components of a QA program for DBT.
• Learn about the clinical challenges and opportunities related to DBT and breast screening.
• Keep up to date with the CAR mammography accreditation requirements.

Continuing Education Credits

This COMP workshop has been approved by CAMPEP for 16.25 MPCEC credits.

Endorsed by the America Association of Physicists in Medicine.   

Workshop Schedule: 

 Planning Committee:  

Peter Watson, workshop co-director, McGill University Health Centre | Montréal, QC
Alain Gauvin, workshop co-director, Connectimage Medical Inc. | Montréal, QC
Elena Tonkopi, Nova Scotia Health Authority | Halifax, NS
Stephanie Schofield, Nova Scotia Health Authority | Halifax, NS
Marija Popovic, Education Committee Chair, McGill University Health Centre | Montréal, QC
Erika Brown, COMP, Grimsby, ON
Khadija Cutcher, COMP, Ottawa, ON

Policy Against Inappropriate Behaviour at COMP Sponsored Events

Speakers / Panelists

Romain Brevet, PhD
Senior Image Quality Engineer
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Romain Brevet, PhD

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Romain Brevet, PhD
Senior Image Quality Engineer

Romain has a PhD in the field of medical physics (more precisely in the field of heavy ion therapy, GSI & TU Darmstadt, Germany). Romain joined GE Healthcare in 2016, is now working as a senior image quality engineer in the mammography global team and is based in Buc (France).


Alain Gauvin, M.Sc., MBA, FCCPM, DABR, DABMP, CIIP
Consulting Physicist
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Alain Gauvin, M.Sc., MBA, FCCPM, DABR, DABMP, CIIP

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Alain Gauvin, M.Sc., MBA, FCCPM, DABR, DABMP, CIIP
Consulting Physicist

Mr. Gauvin is a consulting medical physicist with many years of experience in diagnostic radiological physics, including mammography. He is also involved in imaging informatics, as an integration architect for the provincial program of imaging repository. He is a Physics reviewer for the Canadian Association of Radiologist Mammography Accreditation Program. Mr. Gauvin is certified in mammography physics by CCPM, and is also certified in diagnostic radiology physics by CCPM, ABR, and ABMP.


Andrew Maidment, PhD FAAPM FSBI
Associate Professor and Chief of Physics
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Andrew Maidment, PhD FAAPM FSBI

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Andrew Maidment, PhD FAAPM FSBI
Associate Professor and Chief of Physics

Dr. Maidment has more than 35 years of experience in medical imaging. He has been a lead investigator in many studies focusing on the development of x-ray imaging methods, development of methods for the assessment of imaging systems, and image analysis and image reconstruction. His research has specific focus in digital breast tomosynthesis and virtual clinical trials (VCTs). Dr. Maidment have more than 300 publications. Currently, he is the Chief of Physics for Radiology in the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Director of the X-ray Physics Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, which together with the Breast Imaging Divi-sion are vertically integrated with a special focus on development and pre-clinical and clinical validation of breast imaging systems. He has been active in many clinical trials in breast cancer imaging, including serving as co-chair of the ACRIN (American College of Radiology Imaging Network) 4006 clinical trial of digital breast tomosyn-thesis screening, and the clinical evaluation of contrast enhanced digital breast tomosynthesis. He also serves as the Director of the Interfaces Graduate Program in Biomedical Imaging and Information Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Maidment is a Fellow of the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, and the Society of Breast Imaging, and a Distinguished Investigator of the Academy of Radiology Research.


James Mainprize, PhD
Research Associate
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James Mainprize, PhD

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James Mainprize, PhD
Research Associate

James Mainprize is a researcher in the Physical Sciences Platform, Sunnybrook Research Institute. He has published several articles on digital mammography, breast tomosynthesis, image quality and radiation risk. His most recent research activities include machine learning to predict masking risk in breast screening, using artificial intelligence to design craniofacial implants and using simulation models to study impacts of different scenarios for breast screening.


Joanne Muldoon MRT,R,MR
Clinical Sales Manager
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Joanne Muldoon MRT,R,MR

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Joanne Muldoon MRT,R,MR
Clinical Sales Manager

Joanne Muldoon is the Project and Clinical Sales Manager for breast and skeletal health solutions at Hologic Canada. She has been with Hologic for over 13 years and has over 25 years of experience in Diagnostic Imaging. Joanne’s passion for women’s health began when she was an MRI research technologist at Sunnybrook with a focus in breast imaging. Since joining Hologic in 2010, she played a key role in supporting Hologic’s Canadian distribution network with product training and new product launches. Joanne has an in-depth knowledge of the Hologic breast and skeletal health portfolio and in her current role she helps to educate customers on how to successfully implement latest technologies to enhance workflow and improve patient outcomes.


Tushita Patel, PhD
Medical Physicist
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Tushita Patel, PhD

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Tushita Patel, PhD
Medical Physicist

I am currently a Medical Physicist, working in R&D at Hologic, Inc. I provide medical physics support throughout the product development phases of imaging systems. For released products in the field, I provide guidance on QC procedures to the site medical physicists when needed and investigate physics issues that may arise. My background in breast imaging research for my doctoral dissertation, specifically in digital breast tomosynthesis, has provided a strong basis for my role.


Douglas Pfeiffer, MS, DABR, FACR, FAAPM
Medical Physicist
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Douglas Pfeiffer, MS, DABR, FACR, FAAPM

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Douglas Pfeiffer, MS, DABR, FACR, FAAPM
Medical Physicist

Douglas Pfeiffer is the medical physicist for Boulder Community Health in Boulder, Colorado, USA. He is co-author of the American College of Radiology (ACR) Digital Mammography QC Manual, done while serving on the ACR Subcommittee for Quality Assurance in Mammography. He speaks regularly at the MTMI Mammography Physics update and has give a number of invited presentations on the ACR DM QC Manual. He also worked with the IAEA in the development of the Remote and Automated QC for Diagnostic and Mammographic Facilities program.


Rasika Rajapakshe, PhD, FCCPM, HCISPP
Senior Medical Physicist
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Rasika Rajapakshe, PhD, FCCPM, HCISPP

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Rasika Rajapakshe, PhD, FCCPM, HCISPP
Senior Medical Physicist

Dr. Rasika Rajapakshe is a senior medical physicist at BC Cancer, Kelowna and serves as the Lead Medical Physicist for the BC Cancer Breast Screening Program. He is a Fellow of the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine and is certified in Radiation Oncology and Mammography Physics. He is also certified as a Health Care Information Security and Privacy Practitioner from (ICS)2.

Dr. Rajapakshe is a member of the Academic and Screeners Advisory committees for BC Cancer Breast Screening and an external reviewer for the Mammography Accreditation Program of the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR-MAP). He is a member of the Physics of Mammography Accreditation Committee at the Canadian College of Physicists in Medicine and has served as the Chair from 2007-2013. He has also served as a Technical Expert to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on quality assurance standards for Digital Mammography Systems. He has contributed to Local (British Columbia), National (Health Canada), and International (IAEA) standards on quality assurance of digital mammography systems, including imaging informatics.

His academic involvement includes his appointments as a Clinical Associate Professor for the Faculty of Medicine at UBC, Adjunct Professor for Computer Science at UBC –Okanagan, and Affiliate Faculty at the School of Health Information Science, University of Victoria. He was also a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore from 2016-2018. His research interest is focused on the personalization of early cancer detection and prognostication, an interest which prompted him to found the Early Detection Research Group in 2008.

In 2020, Dr. Rajapakshe founded the Okanagan AI Consortium, which brings together a group of experts in the Okanagan area working in artificial intelligence and digital technologies in healthcare. The group collaborates on legal, ethical, and other current topics in this domain. He is currently working with the Information Security group and the Information Access, Privacy, and Technology Development, Legal Services group of the Provincial Services Authority to enable the use of Amazon Web Services (AWS) for Artificial Intelligence algorithm development and validation on the AWS cloud service located in Canada. He also participated in the two day public workshop on “Evolving Role of Artificial Intelligence in Radiological Imaging” during February 25 - 26, 2020, at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, organized by the US Food and Drug Administration.


Stephanie Schofield, RTR
Quality Control Technologist
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Stephanie Schofield, RTR

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Stephanie Schofield, RTR
Quality Control Technologist

I have been a medical imaging technologist for 30years. My career started with Mammography and for the last 22 years have been working in quality control. Over the last 10 years I have been on many committees including CAMRT professional practice and was the first technologist on the Canadian Society for Breast Imaging. I have been involved with COMP Mammography workshop as a presenter in 2017 and as committee member for 2021. In 2021 a became an application specialist for Densitas which is a software company providing breast image analytics including positioning quality.


Jean Seely, MD, FRCPC
Head of Breast Imaging section at The Ottawa Hospital, Professor Radiology, University of Ottawa
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Jean Seely, MD, FRCPC

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Jean Seely, MD, FRCPC
Head of Breast Imaging section at The Ottawa Hospital, Professor Radiology, University of Ottawa

Dr. Jean Seely is a full Professor in the Department of Radiology at the University of Ottawa, Head of the Breast Imaging Section at the Ottawa Hospital, and Regional Breast Imaging Lead for the Ontario Breast Screening Program in the Champlain region. She is on the Executive Board of the CAR Mammography Accreditation Program. She is an Editorial Board member of the Canadian Association of Radiology Journal and The Journal of Breast Imaging. She is the President of the Canadian Society of Breast Imaging. Her research interests include Breast MRI, breast cancer screening, quality in breast imaging, and patient experience. She has been recognized for her achievements by being awarded Fellow of the Society of Breast Imaging in 2017 and Fellow of the Canadian Association of Radiologists in 2021. She is a volunteer on the Medical Advisory Board of densebreast-info.org. Her commitment is to reduce the mortality and morbidity of breast cancer and provide high quality breast imaging nationally and internationally.


Matthew Seidler, MDCM, FRCPC
Chief of Breast Imaging
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Matthew Seidler, MDCM, FRCPC

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Matthew Seidler, MDCM, FRCPC
Chief of Breast Imaging

Dr. Seidler completed his medical school and residency in Diagnostic Radiology at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He then completed a fellowship in Breast Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital (Harvard Medical School) in Boston, MA. He is currently Chief of Breast Imaging at the Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal, and is an Assistant Professor of Radiology at the Université de Montréal.


Elena Tonkopi, MSc, MCCPM, DABR
Staff Physicist and Assistant Professor
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Elena Tonkopi, MSc, MCCPM, DABR

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Elena Tonkopi, MSc, MCCPM, DABR
Staff Physicist and Assistant Professor

Elena Tonkopi is a Medical Physicist at Nova Scotia Health Authority (Halifax) and an assistant professor at Dalhousie University, Department of Diagnostic Radiology and Department of Radiation Oncology. She has been certified in mammography by CCPM since 2013 and is a member of the COMP Imaging Committee since 2019. Her research interests include patient dosimetry, Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs), radiopaque embolic agents.


Ruben van Engen
Physics consultant
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Ruben van Engen

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Ruben van Engen
Physics consultant

Ruben van Engen is physics consultant at LRCB. His research projects include: (1) methods to evaluate image quality in mammography and breast tomosynthesis including model observers, AI and visual grading analysis; (2) breast dosimetry. He is overall responsible for system approvals (typetests) in the Dutch breast cancer screening programme and for EUREF, including both the technical and clinical evaluation of systems. Responsible for developing QC protocols and the development and implementation of QA programmes for breast tomosynthesis systems in the Dutch breast cancer screening programm and for ultrasound systems in the Dutch prenatal screening. He teaches mammography physics to Dutch and international radiologists and medical physicists, partly in European Network for Training and Education of Medical Physics Experts (EUTEMPE) context.
Former chair of the EUREF physics steering group and was responsible in this context for the physics chapters in the fourth edition of the European Guideline and it's Supplement. Responsible for the development of the EUREF breast tomosynthesis QC protocol. Former member of the Guidelines Development Group of the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. Former chair of the 'leidraad' mammography working group of the Dutch Association of Medical Physics. Chair of the DBT working group of the European Federation of Organizations of Medical Physics (EFOMP), member of several international mammography guidelines groups, including TG245, TG282 and TG 323 of the American Association of Physics in Medicine (AAPM) and member of the mammography working group of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He has extensive experience in leading consensus meetings with stakeholders in the development of new European QC protocols.


Stefan Veitenhansl
Head of Regulatory, Risk Management and Reliability
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Stefan Veitenhansl

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Stefan Veitenhansl
Head of Regulatory, Risk Management and Reliability

Born in 1975, married, two kids
Studies of Electrical Engineering at University of Siegen, Germany
5 years experience as software developer
6 years experience as technical support engineer for Ultrasound systems
6 years experience as system engineer and product risk manager for mammography systems
5 years experience as R&D consultant for standards & regulations for X-Ray products

Member of German National Standardization Committee of Radiology and IEC TC 62 WG 31 (mammography)


Marc Venturi
Director of Accreditation
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Marc Venturi

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Marc Venturi
Director of Accreditation

Marc is the Director of Accreditation with the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR). In this capacity he oversees the accreditation services for the organization with a focus on enhancing medical imaging for patient by brining new modalities into the accreditation ecosystem, while building partnerships with other national specialty societies. His role at the CAR interfaces between the artificial Intelligence Standing Committee and to drive new initiatives related to innovation. Prior to his role at the CAR, Marc worked at the Ottawa Hospital/Ottawa Hospital Research Institute to integrate research culture into all aspects of hospital operations. He also helped set national standards for clinical research and encouraged the launch of industry-sponsored studies across Canada. Marc has a bachelor of science in Biotechnology and a Master's in Health Administration.


Suzanne Watring
Corporate Mammography Supervisor NorthShore
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Suzanne Watring

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Suzanne Watring
Corporate Mammography Supervisor NorthShore

I have been employed with NorthShore University HealthSystem for the past 31 years. I am the Corporate Mammography Supervisor for NorthShore University HealthSystem NorthShore sites. I oversee the quality control for the sites I supervise and manage all accreditation through the ACR for nine sites. I am a member of the ARRT and registered through the IEMA maintaining my licensure in Mammography.


Peter Watson, PhD
Medical Physicist, Assistant Professor
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Peter Watson, PhD

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Peter Watson, PhD
Medical Physicist, Assistant Professor

Peter Watson is a clinical medical physicist with a specialization in diagnostic radiology physics, currently working at the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. He holds an appointment as Assistant Professor in the Department of Oncology at McGill University and is an instructor in the Medical Physics Unit. When not performing quality assurance testing on medical imaging x-ray systems, Pete does research on Monte Carlo-derived mammography scatter corrections and kV intraoperative radiation therapy dosimetry. Pete completed his B.Sc. in physics at the University of Waterloo, followed by an M.Sc. at McGill University in high energy particle physics working on the ATLAS experiment at CERN. During this time, he discovered the wonderful world of medical physics and completed a (second) M.Sc. and Ph.D. in the McGill Medical Physics Unit.


Martin J. Yaffe, PhD, CM, FRSC, DSc (Hon), FAAPM
Senior Scientist
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Martin J. Yaffe, PhD, CM, FRSC, DSc (Hon), FAAPM

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Martin J. Yaffe, PhD, CM, FRSC, DSc (Hon), FAAPM
Senior Scientist

Martin Yaffe is a medical physicist and imaging scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute and Professor of Medical Biophysics at The University of Toronto. His research over the past 40 years has focused on the earlier detection, diagnosis and characterization of cancer. His lab pioneered the development of digital mammography and contrast-enhanced mammography, now used worldwide, and in collaboration with epidemiologist, Dr. Norman Boyd and multiple other collaborators, contributed to the understanding of breast density in its dual roles as a risk factor for breast cancer and in masking its detection in mammograms. He has a strong interest in breast cancer screening and has refined and used microsimulation models to study its optimizations, the phenomenon of over detection and the effect of COVID disruptions on breast cancer outcomes. He is a member of the leadership team of the TMIST breast tomosynthesis trial (MAC-22/ ECOG-ACRIN 1151) and serves as its Canadian Study Chair. Over his career, he has been committed to improvement of image quality in mammography. He has chaired working groups of ICRU and IAEA, focusing on mammography quality and his group has developed custom phantoms and test procedures for that purpose, and created specialized QC programs for both the DMIST and TMIST trials.   He created the Biomarker Imaging Research Laboratory (BIRL) to apply imaging science to the quantitative analysis of pathologic and radiomic cancer biomarkers to improve their value for use in prognosis and prediction. He is Co-Director of the Imaging Research Program of The Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. He was inducted as a Member of The Order of Canada in 2015 and as Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada in 2021.