Leadership column


By SIR President Parag J. Patel, MD, MS, FSIR, and SIR Executive Director Keith M. Hume


Better together T


here is one universal truth of interventional radiology: No other specialty is trained to do all that we do. We are a vast specialty, with incredible diversity in how we practice. But we’re bonded together by our skills and passion to find better ways to care for our patients. Together, we are innovators and scientists, clinicians and


collaborators. Together, we shift our ideas of what is possible. Last year was a testament to what we can achieve when working as a unified force.


We implemented governance changes that will allow us to become a more skills-based, nimble and responsive organization aligned with best practices in member-driven organizations. We’ll work together better and hear more voices.


We continued our fight against reimbursement cuts. Last year, nearly 5,300 messages were sent by more than 1,400 SIR members to their congressional representatives asking them to take action and reverse proposed cuts to IR. In addition, our advocacy team scored major victories on the state level, getting legislation passed in Rhode Island that guaranteed coverage for uterine fibroid embolization.


We maintained our commitment to funding research, because there is no organization more dedicated to funding IR research than SIR and SIR Foundation. In 2022, SIR Foundation distributed $1.5 million in special grant funding, in addition to the usual robust portfolio of grants programs, to further IR knowledge and ensure the promise and the practice of IR are supported by evidence and patient outcomes. We continued our longstanding history of recognizing and providing grant funding for early career scientists and clinician investigators—a feat that was made possible through the generous support of our donors and corporate partners.


We worked to recruit the best and brightest into our field by creating education opportunities and building communities through initiatives like the Grants for the Education of Medical Students (GEMS) Program. And we have developed materials to ensure that our members are able to practice and thrive—from practice resources like the IR Business Center to high-value clinical practice guidelines. We strive for a standard of excellence in our clinical practice guidelines, and work to hold our counterpart societies to the same standard.


And we have developed a community that embraces civil discourse and the exchange of ideas, while continuing to expect that the respect of each member is paramount. No one knows each member's full story, but we all know that as IRs we are part of a unique community, providing the best care for our patients in ways that were not possible a generation ago.


Our community has changed medicine over the past 50 years, and we’re not done. The future holds nothing but promise; new evidence-based research, new forms of data collection, new therapies, new support systems for IRs to thrive in their chosen practice models. But it also holds new opportunities for us, as a community, to keep changing patient lives.


This issue of IR Quarterly contains a special report on the role that IR can play in creating health equity. From increasing patient literacy to petitioning for legislative advocacy to rethinking how we build our research, IRs have the opportunity to improve patients' lives even more than we already do. SIR and SIR Foundation look forward to continuing these changes for the next 50 years—and we will do it together.


6 IRQ | WINTER 2023


Last year, nearly 5,300 messages were sent by more than 1,400 SIR members to their congressional representatives asking them to take action and reverse proposed cuts to IR.


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