Advocacy


An ongoing vision Reflections on IR’s primary specialty status


IR became a primary specialty in 2012. Marshall Hicks, MD, FSIR, was the SIR president at the time of this momentous achievement. Dr. Hicks reflects on all the building blocks that led to a vision of IR independence.


A


chieving primary specialty status was a long process; it didn’t happen all at once. It was an ongoing


conversation and effort that had its roots in the very start of the society, but it was also controversial.


For years, we were scrutinizing the identity of interventional radiology and how much it should be tied to imaging. There was a group that wanted to walk away from imaging fully, while others felt that imaging was in the roots of IR and set us apart among other interventionalists, and didn’t want to completely sever that tie.


There was a lot of thoughtful and reasonable conversations and compromise that led to the conclusion that IR truly did need to be its own specialty—but the best route for that was to stay with diagnostic radiology, connected with the American Board of Radiology, and to become a separate pathway that would allow joint certificates in both imaging and interventional radiology.


All these years later, I do believe this was the right decision; it established IR as its own identity and specialty, but kept


2013 IRQ launches


IR Quarterly, a 40-page, quarterly membership magazine launches as part of SIR's 40th anniversary celebrations.


28 IRQ | WINTER 2025


Developing the specialty identity The first SIR meeting I ever attended was the meeting where SIR—then SCVIR—opened society membership. It was a historical, pivotal moment that I didn’t appreciate the significance of. That was also a controversial topic at the time, but there were enough visionaries who recognized that the only way for the specialty to grow and thrive was to open it up. We had to truly consider our vision, decide if we wanted to be the society of a specialty or subspecialty, and decide how to develop this emerging field.


Marshall Hicks, MD, FSIR


The first SIR meeting I ever attended was the meeting where SIR—then SCVIR—opened society membership. It was a historical, pivotal moment that I didn’t appreciate the significance of.


us aligned with a very important part of our roots. Achieving primary specialty status was the culmination of decades of work, growth and vision—and it has set SIR and IR up for the next stage in its developing identity.


I came along at an interesting time in the specialty. I was part of the “second generation” of IR. The first generation had trailblazed: they’d done the first in everything, and now my peers and I were taking those innovations, refining them and setting up studies to prove their outcomes.


This was when the growth of the specialty began to truly parallel the growth of the society. The leaders that came into it fulfilled every dimension that we needed as a society—and specialty—to thrive. These leaders established a large annual meeting, created coding and reimbursement strategies that allowed sustainability, set up educational programs, and founded the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Medicine. The journal helped us establish our practice standards, and the standards committee gave us professional credibility.


2014 The Early Career Section


The Early Career Section is established, providing a platform in which members new to the practice of IR can develop a knowledge and resource base, network, participate in decision-making and serve as a resource to leadership.


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