SIR Today salutes the 2023 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.
SIR GOLD MEDAL
SIR’s Gold Medal, the society’s highest honor, is awarded to a member who has helped ensure the future of interventional radiology by advancing the quality of medicine and patient care. The Gold Medal presentations will take place on Sunday, March 5, at 10:30 a.m. MT, during the Opening Plenary Session.
Curtis W. Bakal, MD, MPH, FSIR
Curtis W. Bakal, MD, MPH, FSIR
Who: I’d say the person who inspired me most—when I was young—was my father. He taught me the importance of hard work and family. He worked as a skilled tradesman. We spent a lot of time together on weekends on repairs and DIY improvement projects around the house. I think that’s where I got my love of working with my hands.
Where: In my personal life, when our son was younger, we used to go to a terrific resort on Lake Champlain in northern Vermont towards the end of every summer. It was just an ideal place, a great mix of being with your family, being outdoors and making new friends.
For my professional life, two places inspired me. One was the Angio section at Mass General, where I did my residency. My second rotation was in my last year and it really changed my career course. Arthur Waltman and the rest of the crew loved to teach residents and created a real team atmosphere. The docs, nurses and techs all seemed to respect each other and worked well together as a team. Even though he was already a really important person in the angio world, Arthur spent a lot of time with the residents and ensured that they had a great experience on the rotation. I came away from that month thinking that Angio was really collaborative, cool and exciting—and a great career choice.
My other significant inspiration came from Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, my first attending position after fellowship. I went there to work with Seymour Sprayregen, a founding Fellow of the society. Spray had done the first angioplasty in New York City. He helped me get started clinically and academically and he taught me so much. A few years after I arrived, Jacob Cynamon joined us. We had a great team there—the work was crucial, exciting, challenging and fun.
What: My family and friends matter the most. I am lucky enough to have cherished friends who go all the way back to elementary school, high school and college. My IR friends and colleagues have also inspired me in important ways. In retirement my new chums help me stay active and engaged. Family is certainly my biggest inspiration. As an interventional radiologist, you’re always so busy. You have an unpredictable and hectic clinical schedule; you write, travel for work, contribute time to the society, and so on—but working to have a family life on top of all that is most important.
James G. Caridi, MD, FSIR
As Dr. Caridi will receive the SIR Gold Medal posthumously, Theresa M. Caridi, MD, FSIR, his daughter, graciously wrote about his inspirations for SIR Today. We thank Dr. Caridi for her time.
Dena Tedesco
James G. Caridi, MD, FSIR
Mentors: Dr. Irvin (Dick) Hawkins was the mentor under which Dad did IR fellowship at the University of Florida. They went on to work together for many years and became lifelong friends. Dad was inspired by Dick’s true sense of curiosity and his greatness for innovation. Dad honored Dick by keeping up CO2 efforts (for which he also became a world expert) after Dick’s passing.
Dad had many mentors, all of whom he considered friends, and they are truly too numerous to count. The IR community was an extended part of the family.
Inspirations: Rocky Balboa: “One step, one punch, one round at a time.”
This inspiration was a staple throughout his Multiple Myeloma journey – through his bone marrow transplant, countless rounds of chemo, and numerous hospitalizations. During my IR fellowship at Penn in 2012-2013, Dad came to visit and ran up the “Rocky” steps.
Patients were also a source of inspiration for Dad, especially after becoming a patient himself. He felt it gave him the ability to deeply understand the patient experience and a different perspective for advocacy.
Saying: “Do good and forget it” – originally from his mother (whom us kids called Nanny). Dad believed in helping others, even if in a small way, and did not expect thanks or anything in return.
Symbol: Infinity gauntlet (Marvel) – he said he channeled the powers of all 5 finger stones (5 kids – Vincent, Theresa, James, Angela, Nicco) to fuel the 6th stone (Dad)
Ziv J Haskal, MD, FSIR
Ziv J Haskal, MD, FSIR
Who: My parents, Haim and Ruth, inspired me by rigor and example: my dad is an engineer with a focus on innovation, ingenuity and invention; he suffers fools badly. My workaholic mom started as a nurse because, in her working-class family, women did not go to med school. She became one of the earliest nurse practitioners in Boston, ran her own medical practices for decades, practices still and continues to shames me with the depth of her knowledge of internal medicine. Jack O’Connor, the renowned pediatric radiologist at Boston University, singlehandedly pivoted me from an intended career in inner city medicine by his charisma and knowledge. In residency, the now-unfathomable procedural independence a second-year resident was granted at San Francisco General Hospital, after a mere 2 months training, and the excitement and adrenaline of doing this good work in needful patients was intoxicating. Ernie Ring sealed the IR deal by, well, being Ernie, as well as Roy and Jeanne. That hasn’t changed. I’ve added many mentors since, in the United States and abroad, even some who remarkably view me as theirs. I hope they all know how much I appreciate them, owe them and hope I continue to honor them by my actions.
What, where: Professors Ring and Gordon told me, in leaving UCSF for Penn, that the great Stanley Baum "loved papers"—and that I should seek areas to work in that others shunned. At the time, that was TIPS, as fellowship equipped me with an unparalleled TIPS experience in 1992. TIPS was new, the questions many and unanswered, writing became an easier practiced skill, and teaching enjoyable. Dr. Baum supported me, funded creation of the Penn IR animal lab and, several hundred pig TIPS later, I was deep into sustaining questions I could not have imagined. This branched into human gene therapy, dialysis, etc. In a visiting lecture, Gordon McClean methodically dissected the inadequacies of early atherectomy literature and I decided then and there that I would design and run prospective controlled trials in IR, to set our specialty to higher expectations of evidence. Each such trial took 6 years.
I’ve never said "No" to something interesting, regardless of the potential time it might take—that has been the touchstone of my career. It’s led me into animal work, creating and running conferences, national committees, writing guidelines, societal presidencies, new media such as VR, trials, social media, device development, regulatory work and endless other projects. It led me to into journal editing, first at CVIR and then a decade at JVIR; remarkable to a person who disliked writing. It has given me treasured friends and colleagues across many borders. Even in retrospect, this remains unimaginable. These have all been driven of a strong sense of personal mission—IR and patient-level healthcare and collegial and trainee freudenfreude. A lesson is that if I have done these things, then anyone can, and likely far better. And most importantly, having the love and endless forbearance of a wife, Dina, and two daughters, Yael and Aliza, has been at the center of it all.
