The “Owning success” column flips the narrative by compiling IR panels predominantly comprised of women and underrepresented minorities. The series focuses on panelists’ successes, rather than their struggles, to celebrate individual effort and recognize the tremendous impact that each has had on the field—and to show younger IRs that there is more than one path to success.
In this issue, Nishita Kothary, MD, FSIR, interviews three members of the SIR Executive Council to give insight on the inner workings of SIR.
Nishita Kothary, MD, FSIR: SIR has changed a lot over the past few years, with a newer focus on implementing new ideas and sections. Laura, this really happened during your presidency. How did the EC prioritize what efforts to focus on?
Laura Findeiss, MD, FSIR: All the ideas the EC pursues come from the membership, and we go through a process of strategic planning every 5 years with intermittent planning in between to tap into what the membership is prioritizing. Then we build that into strategy and decide how to achieve it. A lot of it is that boring process of strategy development.
NK: There’s such a brilliant think tank out there in IR. I know we have the Members Business Meeting, but if someone wanted to put forth an idea, how would they go about it? What is the process?
Alda L. Tam, MD, FSIR: Since SIR Connect was created, we have seen a lot of good ideas and discussions come through that. Sometimes when things arise on SIR Connect, they are routed to the appropriate staff member and it spurs a discussion on the staff and EC side.
We also have initiatives that are more division specific. For example, every November we have an open call for guidelines topics to see what the members feel we should be writing on. If you submit through that, your idea does get discussed and prioritized, and resources get allocated if it is elevated to the level of warranting a paper or position statement. The SIR Foundation also has an open call for research ideas from membership to help strategize what areas to fund to move research forward for the entire field of IR. Those are some specific examples, but the EC contacts are easy to reach and I think everyone would appreciate direct contact.
James B. Spies: SIR has been very open to new ideas and suggestions, and the current leadership would be perfectly happy to get an email or phone call with ideas. Of course, we have a lot of ideas and not always enough bandwidth. It is a struggle sometimes to take all the input and fit the ideas into the context of what we can achieve and what is doable. So not every idea can be acted upon. But if we don’t ever hear the idea, we don’t have a chance to consider it.
NK: The SIR from 15 years ago looks very different from the SIR today. It’s a time of excitement. Alda, what are you excited about as you come in as a new president in 2023?
AT: There are a lot of exciting things going on, especially regarding the governance changes that will impact the EC. There are a lot of resources and planned webinars to highlight the differences in the old and new proposed structure, but in general, we’re looking to create a governance 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 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: I 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 but what the society is currently able to achieve.
