The Gold Medal, the SIR’s highest honor, is awarded not only for extraordinary service to SIR but to those who have dedicated their past and present talents to advancing the quality of medicine and patient care through the practice of interventional radiology. The Gold Medal presentations will take place on Sunday, March 24, at 10:30 a.m. MT, during the Opening Plenary Session.
SIR Today salutes the 2024 recipients of the most prestigious SIR awards with a personal look at their outstanding careers, asking them for a person, place and thing that has particularly inspired or influenced them. Watch for more articles about award winners during the annual meeting.
Albert A. Nemcek Jr., MD, FSIR, completed his fellowship at the Midwest to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he has also spent the remainder of his career. He was honored by the establishment of the Albert A. Nemcek Jr. Endowed Professorship in Interventional Radiology at Northwestern in 2011. Dr. Nemcek also participated in multiple SIR committees, including the Annual Meeting committee, and served for 5 years as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.
Who: To me, there are constant sources of inspiration. My mentors, of course. I’ve had many throughout the years. The trainees that I deal with are sources of inspiration for me. They all hopefully make me a smarter and better physician, and a better teacher as well. My patients are inspirational to me in terms of trying to make their lives better. My kids are an inspiration because they’ve done really well.
But if I were to pick one person, I would probably pick my father. He is no longer with us, but my father was a radiologist and the first person that exposed me to medicine. I think that deep down, even though interventional radiology didn’t officially exist yet, my father probably wanted to be an interventional radiologist. He was very bright, but at the same time very respectful toward expertise and medical knowledge. He worked very hard for his patients and his family. Even though I didn’t start out in college thinking I was going to go into interventional radiology, I’m sure that his influence played a large role. It developed my interests and the things that led me to pick a career.
What: I was almost a bone radiologist and one of the reasons was that while in San Diego, I was exposed to a man named Donald Resnick, MD. He’s probably one of the premier bone radiologists. He wrote the go-to book for bone radiology, and I really liked it. I liked the intellectual challenge. I was almost a bone radiologist and then I realized that one of the main reasons I was going to do bone radiology was solely because of the book, and that didn’t seem like enough.
I really enjoyed the intellectual exercise of diagnostic radiology, looking at pictures and figuring out what was going on in a way that was relevant to patient care. I think that an excellent interventional radiologist also must be an excellent diagnostic radiologist. I also like interacting with patients and working with my hands. Since I love working with my hands, I love doing procedures. Pure diagnostic radiology didn’t do that as much for me. I’ve always felt that interventional radiology was the one specialty in medicine that best combined all those things that I was deeply interested in and passionate about. I’ve never regretted my decision to pursue interventional radiology.
Where: Most of my radiology training was in San Diego, but I chose to come back to Wisconsin because I’m from there. However, I love San Diego and thought that it was a great place to train and live. Every time I visit, I think: why did I leave?
I was also an undergrad at Stanford, and moving there was probably one of the smartest things I ever did. It gave me a whole new outlook on how knowledge is gained and I was exposed to so much diversity of thought. I did a lot of growing up while I was there. And then I came to Northwestern University, where I’ve been for about 35 years now. It’s been a great institution in terms of the people I’ve been exposed to. I’m only half joking when I say that one of the reasons we have been very successful at Northwestern is because we keep hiring people who are smarter than us.
Each of those places has made its contribution to who I am and I’m very happy. If I had to do it over again, I’d probably choose the same places.
