The Kinked Wire

We may not have had everything we wanted, but we had most of the things we needed. And most of the things we needed were our own ingenuity, our own innovativeness, that comes from practicing our own specialty, interventional radiology.  —Janice Newsome, MD, FSIRWarren Krackov, MD, FSIR, speaks with Janice Newsome, MD, FSIR, an interventional radiologist in Atlanta, about the COVID-19 impact on her city and practice, and the role of resiliency in the face of the pandemic.Find IR resources for COVID-19 planning, staffing, personal protective equipment and more at the SIR website, sirweb.org.Listen to more interventional radiologist perspectives on COVID-19:July 21: New York, N.Y. (Akhilesh K. Sista, MD, FSIR)May 20: Miami, Fla. (Costantino S. Peña, MD, FSIR)May 8: Chicago, Ill. (George Behrens, MD)April 29: Palo Alto, Calif. (Raj Shah, MD)April 20: Seattle, Wash. (R. Torrance Andrews, MD, FSIR)Note: This episode was recorded on May 29, 2020.  SIR thanks Medtronic for its support of this episode.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

It’s kind of been a roller coaster ride. We’re all excited about everything that was gong to happen with the annual meeting … And then at the beginning of the year we started to get reports and that’s when we started saying, “What are we going to do? How is this going to happen?”—Constantino S. Peña, MD, FSIRWarren Krackov, MD, FSIR, speaks with Constantino S. Peña, MD, FSIR, chair of the Society of Interventional Radiology 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting, about the decision to cancel the in-person meeting, shift to a virtual annual meeting, the role of the COVID-19 pandemic in the decision, and the evolution of education for medical professionals. Learn more about the virtual SIR 2020 annual meeting (June 13–14, 2020) at sirmeeting.org. Read a letter from Dr. Peña in a special section of IR Quarterly, SIR's interventional radiology magazine.Note: This episode was recorded on May 11, 2020.SIR thanks Sirtex for its support of this episode.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

I am originally from a third-world country. When I moved to the United States, I couldn’t believe all the resources that were being wasted in America. And I feel that, for the first time in America, we are learning that. We are learning that we have to be cautious about wasting resources. —George Behrens, MDWarren Krackov, MD, FSIR, speaks with George Behrens, MD, an interventional radiologist in Chicago, about the COVID-19 impact on his city, changes his practice has made in response, and how his native Venezuela has been faring during the pandemic.  Find IR resources for COVID-19 planning, staffing, personal protective equipment and more at the SIR website, sirweb.org.Listen to more interventional radiologist perspectives on COVID-19:July 21: New York, N.Y. (Akhilesh K. Sista, MD, FSIR)June 9: Atlanta, Ga. (Janice Newsome, MD, FSIR)May 20: Miami, Fla. (Costantino S. Peña, MD, FSIR)April 29: Palo Alto, Calif. (Raj Shah, MD)April 20: Seattle, Wash. (R. Torrance Andrews, MD, FSIR)Note: This episode was recorded on May 1, 2020.  Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

One thing I was recognizing very quickly was that, at that time, there was very little guidance from the CDC. A lot of the information was coming from publications from the Chinese experience and the changes that needed to be put in place were really things that hadn’t been done before. —Rajesh Shah, MD, FSIRWarren Krackov, MD, FSIR, speaks with Rajesh Shah, MD, FSIR, an interventional radiologist in the California Bay Area, about his region's experience with the pandemic and the role he played in the development of the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) COVID-19 Toolkit.  Find IR resources for COVID-19 planning, staffing, personal protective equipment and more at the SIR website, sirweb.org.Listen to more interventional radiologist perspectives on COVID-19:July 21: New York, N.Y. (Akhilesh K. Sista, MD, FSIR)June 9: Atlanta, Ga. (Janice Newsome, MD, FSIR)May 20: Miami, Fla. (Costantino S. Peña, MD, FSIR)May 8: Chicago, Ill. (George Behrens, MD)April 20: Seattle, Wash. (R. Torrance Andrews, MD, FSIR)Note: This episode was recorded on April 22, 2020. Dr. Shah's opinions do not represent those of the federal government. Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

There was a report that several people had been sick, and several were transported to hospitals. The next thing we heard was that all of the ambulance crews and firemen who had been involved in the transfer were in quarantine … and it really seemed kind of crazy.—R. Torrance Andrews, MD, FSIRWarren Krackov, MD, FSIR, speaks with R. Torrance Andrews, MD, FSIR, a Seattle-based interventional radiologist, about the onset of COVID-19 in that area and the role that interventional radiology continues to play during this global health crisis. Find IR resources for COVID-19 planning, staffing, personal protective equipment and more at the Society of Interventional Radiology website, sirweb.org.Listen to more interventional radiologist perspectives on COVID-19:July 21: New York, N.Y. (Akhilesh K. Sista, MD, FSIR)June 9: Atlanta, Ga. (Janice Newsome, MD, FSIR)May 20: Miami (Costantino S. Peña, MD, FSIR)May 8: Chicago (George Behrens, MD)April 29: Pal Alto, Calif. (Raj Shah, MD, FSIR)Note: This episode was recorded on March 30, 2020.SIR thanks Varian for its support of this episode.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

Figure out your targets and then automate as much as possible, be it through automatic transfers, automate your savings, move it to a separate account that you're not going to touch. And do as much of that through automation as possible, because really when it's left up to our willpower, all of us are pretty bad at it ... and so what we want is to have good systems in place.  —Clint Gossage, CFPWarren Krackov, MD, FSIR, speaks with Clint Gossage, CFP, from CMG Financial Consulting, about the unique personal financial circumstances that physicians find themselves in throughout their career. SIR thanks Varian for its support of this episode.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

If you put yourself in a place where you say, "Oh, that will never happen to me because I'm strong, and I'm stoic, and I have it under control and I have all the answers," then you already have made yourself susceptible to burnout. —Felicia Speed, LMSWWellness and burnout are increasingly important topics in today's fast-paced culture, and we all want to achieve wellness on the job, at home, in our lives. Warren Krackov, MD, and Jaimin Shah, MD, talk with wellness expert Felicia Speed, LMSW, about how the busy interventional radiologist can achieve wellness and avoid the pitfalls of burning out. SIR thanks Varian for its support of this episode.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

ATTRACT essentially found that, really, it's the people with iliofemoral deep vein thrombosis (DVT) who are the ones most likely to benefit and that, in fact, quality of life was improved in the iliofemoral patients. And so that certainly suggests that we're barking up the right tree with the C-TRACT Trial.—Suresh Vedantham, MD, FSIRHot on the heels of the ATTRACT Trial results comes another exciting new trial on post-thrombotic syndrome (PTS): Chronic Venous Thrombosis: Relief with Adjunctive Catheter-directed Therapy (C-TRACT). According to private practice interventional radiologist Mary Costantino, MD, “I’m thrilled that people are researching these clinical questions, and it’s incredibly pertinent to those of us in non-university settings who are trying on a daily basis to do the right."Warren Krackov, MD, and Jaimin Shah, MD, talk with Principal Investigator Suresh Vedantham, MD, FSIR, on the importance of such research efforts, the potential for C-TRACT to help your patients, and how you can get them enrolled in the study.Learn more about C-TRACT.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

Without being able to articulate what that value is, I’m sure many IRs across the country can relate to the struggle that might ensue when you’re trying to [explain it]. You know you’re valuable, but you have trouble quantifying it and articulating it. —Matt Hawkins, MDIn December 2019, SIR Foundation hosted a Research Consensus Panel on the Value of Interventional Radiology, led by Matt Hawkins, MD. Warren Krackov, MD, and Jaimin Shah, MD, talk with Dr. Hawkins about measuring value and with SIR coding consultant Stephanie L. Dybul, MBA, RT, about the tools IRs can use to get reimbursed appropriately.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show

That could actually create a really big void if we’re not in communities taking care of patients. We’re the “go-to,” we’re necessary in these big systems or big hospitals, but when you get very far from them at all, then you have communities that have absolutely no access to IR. —Laura Findeiss, MD, FSIRIn 2009, SIR held its inaugural Leadership Development Academy (LDA). Among that first class’s graduates was Laura Findeiss, MD, FSIR, who has since held a number of key leadership roles in both SIR and SIR Foundation. In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the first LDA, Warren Krackov, MD, and Jaimin Shah, MD, speak with Dr. Findeiss about the LDA’s impact on her career, and about the current trajectory of IR.Contact us with your ideas and questions, or read more about about interventional radiology in IR Quarterly magazine or SIR's Patient Center.(c) Society of Interventional Radiology.Support the show