The Gold Medal, SIR’s highest honor, is awarded not only for extraordinary service to the society 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 30, at 10:30 a.m., during the Opening Plenary Session.
SIR Today salutes the 2025 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. View these award recipients' full bios.
Michael C. Brunner, MD, FSIR, has held leadership roles in medical practice, professional societies and biotechnology. He is a former president of the Society of Interventional Radiology, board chair of the Society of Interventional Oncology (then World Congress of Interventional Oncology) and chair of the AMA House of Delegates Radiology Section Council.
Dr. Brunner’s clinical career has spanned private practice and academia within community, state and federal institutions. Heading radiology at William S. Middleton Memorial VA Hospital, he led a 60-person department and $5 million budget while overseeing a portfolio of federally and industry-funded research grants. He also held regional and national leadership roles within the VA. Currently, Dr. Brunner serves as senior VP of interventional oncology at Delcath Systems.
WHAT: I was offered a cardiovascular surgery fellowship slot at Stanford University as a med student, having rotated through the cardiovascular surgery clinical service and participated in transplant research in the animal lab. Upon my return to Stanford in 1984 for my first fellowship year in vascular surgery (following 5 years of requisite general surgery), I realized that I couldn’t envision myself in this field for the long haul.
After discussing the possibility of switching my career path to IR, Norman E. Shumway, MD, PhD, brought me to a San Francisco Surgical Society meeting. There, I was fascinated with the innovative IR techniques described by the featured speaker, Ernest J. Ring, MD, FSIR.
Connecting with Dr. Ring after his talk, he introduced me to another IR luminary—Dr. Casarella at Emory. Dr. Casarella, always a visionary, had recently helped bring Dr. Gruentzig (father of balloon angioplasty) from Zurich to Emory University with a joint appointment in cardiology and radiology. Because of my interest and early experience in cardiovascular medicine, Dr. Casarella felt that I would be a perfect candidate for joint fellowships in interventional radiology and interventional cardiology after completing a diagnostic radiology residency.
WHO: William Casarella, MD, FSIR.
Finding my best professional pathway involved some crazy turns. When Andreas Gruentzig, MD, tragically died piloting his plane 3 months after the start of my radiology residency, I ran into Dr. Casarella, who was shaken by the loss of his friend and colleague. As I approached Dr. Casarella to express my condolences for his loss, he initiated our conversation with concern about how I might feel, given the impact on my future career. It was telling of the man that he was.
WHERE: At Emory University, Dr. Casarella guided my personalized training in radiology/IR and fostered my development as a physician scientist. Dr. Casarella’s role model as a leader in medicine and multiple professional societies helped stimulate my subsequent involvement. Years after stepping back from clinical practice to grow a major department, his ability to field unknowns in diagnostic radiology and occasionally staff complex interventional radiology cases was inspirational. Recalling Dr. Casarella’s facility with this balance once again impacted my later clinical career. As my administrative workload, volunteer and research grant efforts consumed more of my personal and professional time, I continued a part-time clinical and teaching practice in academic IR at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
