Owning success By Nishita Kothary, MD, FSIR
Inside the SIR Executive Council
The “Owning success” column flips the narrative by compiling IR panels predominantly comprised of women and underrepresented minorities. The series focuses on panelists’ successes, rather than their struggles, to celebrate individual effort and recognize the tremendous impact that each has had on the field—and to show younger IRs that there is more than one path to success.
In this issue, Nishita Kothary, MD, FSIR, interviews three members of the SIR Executive Council to give insight on the inner workings of SIR.
Nishita Kothary, MD, FSIR: SIR has changed a lot over the past few years, with a newer focus on implementing new ideas and sections. Laura, this really happened during your presidency. How did the EC prioritize what efforts to focus on?
Panelists
Laura Findeiss, MD, FSIR: All the ideas the EC pursues come from the membership, and we go through a process of strategic planning every 5 years with intermittent planning in between to tap into what the membership is prioritizing. Then we build that into strategy and decide how to achieve it. A lot of it is that boring process of strategy development.
Laura Findeiss, MD, FSIR Past president, 2018–2019
NK: There’s such a brilliant think tank out there in IR. I know we have the Members Business Meeting, but if someone wanted to put forth an idea, how would they go about it? What is the process?
James B. Spies, MD, MPH, FSIR Past president, 2014–2015
Alda L. Tam, MD, FSIR: Since SIR Connect was created, we have seen a lot of good ideas and discussions come through that. Sometimes when things arise on SIR Connect, they are routed to the appropriate staff member and it spurs a discussion on the staff and EC side.
Alda L. Tam, MD, FSIR
Secretary, incoming president, 2023–2024
We also have initiatives that are more division specific. For example, every November we have an open call for guidelines topics to see what the members feel we should be writing on. If you submit through that, your idea does get discussed and prioritized, and resources get allocated if it is elevated to the level of warranting a
14 IRQ | SPRING 2022
paper or position statement. The SIR Foundation also has an open call for research ideas from membership to help strategize what areas to fund to move research forward for the entire field of IR. Those are some specific examples, but the EC contacts are easy to reach and I think everyone would appreciate direct contact.
All the ideas the Executive Council pursues come from the membership.
James B. Spies: SIR has been very open to new ideas and suggestions, and the current leadership would be perfectly happy to get an email or phone call with ideas. Of course, we have a lot of ideas and not always enough bandwidth. It is a struggle sometimes to take all the input and fit the ideas into the context of what we can achieve and what is doable. So not every idea can be acted upon. But if we don’t ever hear the idea, we don’t have a chance to consider it.
NK: The SIR from 15 years ago looks very different from the SIR today. It’s a time of excitement. Alda, what are you excited about as you come in as a new president in 2023?
AT: There are a lot of exciting things going on, especially regarding the governance changes that will impact the EC. There are many resources and planned webinars to highlight the differences in the old and new proposed structure, but in general, we’re looking to create a governance
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