Feature
Learning to
see differently An interview with John Abele, FSIR
John Abele, FSIR, the co-founder of Boston Scientific Corporation, is one of the only nonmember Fellows of SIR. He has received the 2005 SIR Gold Medal, the 2019 Frederick S. Keller, MD, Philanthropy Award and the 2020 SIR Foundation Leaders in Innovation award. IR Quarterly spoke with Mr. Abele about his long partnership with IR, the changing culture of medicine and the importance of conscious philanthropy.
What inspired you to begin working with IR? I was drawn to using tools that might enable diagnosis and therapy with less cost, trauma and time. When I was a kid, I spent many years in and out of hospitals and the thing that drove me crazy was time. The waiting. It’s cruel and unusual punishment. I was intrigued with how to simplify things and do them more locally. That’s the beauty of an interventional approach. It’s a bit like Danish design or Shaker furniture—it’s made with the least material possible, but it’s beautiful. That’s the principle of interventional medicine: accomplish the job with the least effort and trauma necessary.
I think the fascinating thing about IR is that you can really cover a wide range of things. Learning to see differently is something that radiology has
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been doing forever. Imaging is a way of looking at the etymology of the problem—you can see the big picture and how one problem interacts with the whole person.
You have worked not just with IR, but a range of specialties. How do you handle those potentially competing interests? I’m interested in culture change. We live in a world where culture change is crucial—you either adjust, or you won’t be around. In the area of medicine, part of that change requires crossing borders, such as bringing together multiple specialties to look at a disease process collaboratively. In my view, one specialty shouldn’t own a disease process. There are skill sets needed to be effective at new technologies, and if you’re looking at an interventional procedure, then you need the skills of the surgeon, the knowledge of a technician and the emotional and social skills of a family physician.
In the early days, I saw IRs be shunted aside. We had some specialists tell us that if we helped IR do certain procedures, they’d never work with us again. That was just embarrassing for
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