structure that makes volunteer opportunities more expansive. The EC as we’ve known it will not have the same organization. Instead, we are incorporating the Clinical Specialty Councils into what was previously the EC steering committee. Now, we have the voices of those practicing in the various disease states, be it pediatrics or PAD, all together in one setting to speak regularly. With that, we hope to establish a pipeline of volunteerism so those interested can find new opportunities. If you come in as a vice chair of a clinical specialty council, you’ll eventually go up to chair and that gives you exposure to the executive functioning of the society and allows you to look at the different leadership roles occurring within the steering council and board of directors. It will make volunteering more appealing, create new roles and bring people in early, so we will eventually keep the membership engaged throughout their career. To me, this is the most exciting change in the society right now.
NK: When we talk about volunteerism, I think of Jim. You are involved in so many things. How do you volunteer so much, and why? What is the best way to volunteer?
JS: It seems like I volunteer a lot because I have been involved for a long time. I’ve cycled on and off of committees and even the EC. I joined the SIR the first year it was open to broad membership, and I learned my first lesson in IR from Ernie Ring: the answer is always yes. For someone who would like to get involved, when there is an opportunity, just say yes. It doesn’t matter what it is, just say yes because you have the capability to do what is asked and people will learn that you get the job done. I was very fortunate because I was doing things that SIR thought was useful and they wanted to engage me. But beyond that I think just being a good volunteer will bring you opportunities to volunteer more frequently. People want someone who will do the job. It’s hard to get a dozen people to move in the same direction, and everyone knows that on any given
To be a good volunteer and make a difference you need to do a lot of listening and note what people are struggling with and not wait for someone to tell you what to do.
committee it tends to function best when there are 3–4 people doing a lot of the work. Be one of those people.
LF: To be a good volunteer and make a difference you need to do a lot of listening and note what people are struggling with and not wait for someone to tell you what to do. Just dive into the work, and figure out how to act on those ideas. Say okay, what needs to get done? What do we need? Pick up the ball see who can help you create a plan and make it happen. The thing I found most rewarding from being president was following through on the neuro and interventional and particularly stroke intervention initiative that had been ongoing for several years and trying to develop the training guidelines. We wanted to push these through to make sure we were protecting our constituency doing stroke intervention in the community and allowing them to be in a position where they are safe to help patients out in rural communities who don’t otherwise have access to stroke intervention. That meant pulling threads others had started and seeing what it took to get it across the finish line. So I think the great thing about volunteering is you can carry something for a number of years and finish it out and see how you can make a difference for patients and our members.
JS: You also have to come to this with humility of knowing you don’t have all the answers. When I first started volunteering with standards, we were sort of six people in a room asking what we thought was the right answer. We
had no data or science and were going by consensus, which is an organized way of saying we don’t know, but we’ll do our best job to guess. It became clear to me that we needed more evidence, and I got a masters of public health specifically to understand it better.
NK: If you want to stand amongst other specialties you need hard data. Alda, I come to you with that. Both you and I love data. What kind of data is SIR looking toward collecting for the future? What are you looking forward to?
AT: We are definitely continuing the vision Dr. Spies outlined in making research important for the future. We now have the clinical resources and staff to create guidelines that are up to methodologic rigor in comparison to other societies. We also have a big initiative from SIR Foundation with the VIRTEX registry and are getting ready to move toward collecting real world data across a variety of IR therapies to guide and establish our value and quality. And the last initiative is the clinical trials network. The SIR Foundation is trying to organize this, and while it is in the beginning stages, the network is something that eases collaboration and helps foster a culture of research for the IRs in training. If we’re going to compete with other primary medical specialties, we need to establish ourselves with data and with thresholds and quality platforms like every other medical specialty out there.
LF: I have to say, it’s so fun to see Jim and Alda sitting next to each other and see how the seeds that were planted have matured. It’s really powerful to see how the culture has changed, and how someone like Alda can come in and operationalize that change. It has such a huge impact on our ability to take care of patients.
JS: The sophistication of the current leadership and what they are doing related to evidence and research is fantastic and lightyears ahead of where we were. It makes me so proud of them. I am so impressed by what the society is currently able to achieve.
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