2012 Annual Report - SIR Foundation

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENTIt has been a pleasure and a privilege to serve as SIR president during thisgroundbreaking year. The recognition value of our profession is at an all-time high, andthe future is even more promising. Interventional radiologists—now recognized as aprimary specialty with a unique skill set providing periprocedural care to patients—are trulymaking a difference in the world.Marshall E. Hicks, MD, FSIRThrough SIR and SIR Foundation, we have created a two-way learning enterprise thatbrings the best of American research and ingenuity to other countries and vice versa.Through the International Scholarship Program, we brought 12 representatives from ninecountries to the Annual Scientific Meeting, where the learning was energized, collaborativeand inspiring. We were able to hear firsthand from these scholars about IR advancesin countries as diverse as Chile, China, Mongolia and Spain, and they were able to taketheir new knowledge back home. Interventional radiology will grow best through strongnational organizations. By requiring that applicants be endorsed by their local societies,we demonstrated our respect for those organizations and also fostered networking andcollaboration among those societies. As Brian F. Stainken, MD, FSIR, notes in his testimoniallater in these pages, “The scholars coalesced into a community of their own—enhancing thepossibilities of a truly global IR community in the future.”INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGISTS—NOW RECOGNIZED AS MEMBERS OF A PRIMARY SPECIALTYWITH A UNIQUE SKILL SET PROVIDING PERIPROCEDURAL CARE TO PATIENTS—ARE TRULYMAKING A DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD.In 2012, SIR played a vital role in sponsoring, sharing and facilitating the crucial researchthat allows us to make a difference in the world. The Society connected principalinvestigators with one another and—crucially—with peers in other specialties and the U.S.Food and Drug Administration, as we saw with the successful initiation of the PRESERVEstudy. Working hand-in-hand with the Society for Vascular Surgery to begin work ona study was a seminal achievement. Paving the way for such critical multidisciplinaryresearch is one way SIR helps our specialty gather the evidence needed to demonstratethe value and quality of care we provide to patients.This annual report not only looks backward, it looks forward. Our closing section, “Envisioningthe Future,” combines the Society’s new strategic plan, which will prioritize our efforts for thenext five years, with predictions for the future of our profession from two keen observers:Gary J. Becker, MD, FSIR, the inaugural editor of the Journal of Vascular and InterventionalRadiology (JVIR); and Ziv J Haskal, MD, FSIR, JVIR ’s current editor-in-chief. Given theopportunity to peer into their crystal balls, these two IR proponents share with us their visionfor the next decade in interventional radiology. Read on to see whether you agree.2Society of Interventional Radiology + Society of Interventional Radiology Foundation