Clinical practice


“Most of the things I did toward the end of my career were things I never did in my training,”


said Anne C. Roberts, MD, FSIR (1996–1997), citing TIPS or IVC fi lter placements without surgical cut downs. “We did embolizations, but usually it was for bleeding and trauma. We certainly weren’t embolizing fi broids.”


When Barry T. Katzen, MD, FSIR (1988–1989), was a resident, the most common surgical procedure


in the United States was an exploratory laparotomy.


“An exploratory laparotomy is when a surgeon opens your abdomen to see what’s going on,” Dr. Katzen said. “It’s hard for people today when you explain that to them. They can’t even understand how that could be.”


Cryoablation—particularly prostate cryoablation, which used to involve placing an array of 8 mm probes into


the prostate under general anesthesia— has also come a long way.


“This was one of the initial percutaneous approaches to ablation, if not the initial approach,” said Brian Stainken, MD, FSIR (2009–2010). “It involved a lot of equipment. I’ll never forget the cryomachines, which belched nitrogen smoke out as they froze away. It seemed a little bit out of Jules Verne.”


The rise of longitudinal care, combined with the growing awareness of the importance of IR, has opened doors for widespread and deeply innovative IR subspecialization.


Clinicians Just as IR tools and techniques have improved and evolved, so too has IR’s role in the healthcare system.


“The internal recognition and external recognition of IR as medical decision- makers and patient care


providers—not just people who do a procedure in response to another physician’s request—is the biggest change to IR over my career,” said M. Victoria Marx, MD, FSIR (2018–2019). “We are now actively contributing to the care of patients both in procedural decision-making and planning as well as postprocedural care.”


This has led IRs to fi rmly establish their fundamental importance to hospitals. From biopsies to port placements to venous procedures, IRs are involved in so many areas that they have become the glue of many hospital practices, Dr. Dake said.


“Now, if IRs are not available or there’s some epidemic that makes them all stay home, the hospital can’t function. That’s not true of many other specialties,” said Dr. Dake. “I think it’s becoming increasingly apparent that IR is mission critical to the delivery of healthcare.”


The rise of longitudinal care, combined with the growing awareness of the importance of IR, has opened doors for widespread and deeply innovative IR subspecialization.


“Over the course of my career, we have progressed from being practitioners who dabble in cancer


diagnosis and therapy to full-fledged participants in this field,” said Michael C. Brunner, MD, FSIR (2003–2004). “Interventional oncology is an entity that was unknown when I started. But it is now a very respected participant in cancer care and has spawned even a separate society to allow for progression of the field.”


An elegant solution For Dr. Vogelzang, the growth of IR has been inspiring to watch. “The beauty of interventional radiology is that it’s the most elegantly simple method ever devised in the history of medicine, and we are the inventors, benefi ciaries and developers of it,” he said. “We revolutionized medicine. We utterly changed the paradigm of medical and surgical therapy.”


1980


1981 SCVIR my name is


After years of spirited discussion, the society changes its name to the Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology (SCVIR). The issue of opening the society to all practitioners performing interventional procedures is introduced. The fi rst permanent society offi ce opens in Pittsburgh.


8 IRQ | WINTER 2025


1982


1983


hello


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