fight against the notions that women are not suited for medicine.


My goal is to always help our patients with new, cutting-edge therapies. I wanted to give back to the field and was fortunate to have a few male colleagues who supported me and opened a space at the table. I was president of SIR at a time when there was great fear that IR would fail due to incursions by other specialties. I was passionate that we would overcome, though, and used that passion to build teams and strategies to allow IR to flourish into the future.


When I first volunteered for SIR, I was directed to economics because of my private practice experience, which was not my interest. However, I discovered that developing a payment policy to improve access to care is a form of both patient and physician advocacy. I learned to advocate, work strategically and collaboratively, and defend payments for IR to help preserve the field and highlight the role IR plays in the larger medical and carrier arena.


and it stands as a singular, defining accomplishment. Yet, looking back, this was a monumental effort with no clear path to success.


Ultimately the keys to my achievement in leading this effort were four-fold:


1. Tenacity, or “grit.” Grit is a “positive, noncognitive trait based on an individual's perseverance of effort combined with the passion for a particular long-term goal or end state.”


2. A willingness to learn from criticism (constructive or not) in the service of furthering the cause. No one was convinced, initially— not DRs, IRs, department chairs or hospital administrators. The idea was considered half-baked and unworkable, but we figured it out by tirelessly listening to all stakeholders.


3. Identifying key collaborators and sponsors. Jim Anderson, MD, and Donald J. Fleming, MD, on the Residency Review Committee (RRC) and John A. Kaufman, MD, MS, FSIR, and M. Victoria Marx, MD, FSIR, at the American Board of Radiology were critical sponsors. Without their support, the project would have failed.


4. Harnessing the power of medical student enthusiasm. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln, “Sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed.”


Jeanne M. LaBerge, MD, FSIR (2017 Gold Medalist) My greatest accomplishment within SIR was the successful approval and implementation of the IR Residency (IR/DR certificate), which unequivocally defined IR as an independent specialty with unique training tailored to the needs of the growing specialty. My North Star is improving patient care, and I firmly believe that establishing the IR residency was imperative for IR patients, trainees and the specialty. It was a goal that the SIR community had worked toward for 20 years,


My success came from being in the right place at the right time. I was at University of California San Francisco, a transplant center, when the first TIPS was performed, fostering my pioneering clinical work in portal hypertension. Similarly, I was on the ABR Board of Trustees and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education RRC during the IR/DR certificate discussions, making me ideally suited to bring the project to fruition.


Lincoln once said: “I have no ambition so great as that of being truly esteemed by my fellow man, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.” The SIR Gold Medal is proof that I am held in high esteem by my peers, and for that, I am very proud.


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John A. Kaufman, MD, MS, FSIR (2018 Gold Medalist) Lots of people have devoted themselves to IR and made huge contributions to the field. And nobody does it alone. If you get an SIR Gold Medal you quickly realize two things: 1) many others are equally or more deserving, and 2) it is a result of all the support, guidance, mentorship, friendship, love, trust, confidence, patience and encouragement from the people in your life. For me, the latter includes not only the three other Gold Medalists in this article, but also my daughter, who decided to throw her lot in with IR (talk about pressure on a parent).


IR is an incredible specialty with unbelievable potential, but the key to the future is the young people in it. At this point, they are more important to IR than any Gold Medalist, as they will build and expand into areas that we can’t even imagine. Our job now is to do for them what others did for us.


My parents taught me to always strive to leave things a little better than you found them, and to treat everyone with respect. I have to admit they were right after all!


Bonus audio content: To hear more from our Gold Medalists, visit e-IRQ and listen to the full conversation.


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