I hope many of my readers are enjoying the SIR Annual Meeting in Boston. For those wondering, I made the decision not to go this year, electing to spend my weekend attending a wedding and working during the week so one of my senior colleagues can enjoy some well-deserved time off.
The last SIR Annual Meeting I attended was in 2019. I remember having a lot of frustrating conversations with other IRs about my perception of hospital-based interventional radiology. I felt like I was continuously slamming my head against a brick wall and in many ways I still feel the same way 3 years later. When I talk with trainees and students about our dynamics with diagnostic radiology, both economically and culturally, it is very clear to me that no matter how loud I am on this blog, our future is being trained in a world which is very different from where they are likely to end up. I’m not necessarily confident that venues such as our society’s annual meeting do a whole lot to advance our field from a philosophical perspective. It is however a fun meeting with some wonderful scientific talks, didactic sessions, and it is clearly a great excuse to party with your friends in-person after a couple years of virtual meetings. Lots of great social media opportunities for those who choose to play that terrible game. I do wish I was there to meet many of you in person and have more dynamic conversations regarding many of the recent topics on this blog. Many thanks to those of you thinking about me for panel sessions or just to meet up informally. Special thanks to those students and residents who have worked hard on what sounds like great programming over the weekend.
This year I’ll be focusing my efforts on OEIS. I’ve been involved with OEIS for two years now. It’s a smaller meeting focused on office-interventional suites. While it is a multidisciplinary meeting, there is great IR representation including some heavy-hitters who played a key role in developing this society. I think these same folks, who have been somewhat ostracized by the academic power structure that dominates the SIR, have in many ways have been just as innovative if not more than many of the typical folks we tend to celebrate during the SIR Annual Meeting. I think the OEIS meeting is a fantastic venue for my future colleagues. Certainly helps that it is free for students and trainees. I’ll be sure to give you a sneak preview of my talk on this blog before going to Vegas for the conference.
While I’ve been diligent about posting in recent months, I have unfortunately been a bit quiet on this blog recently having missed a week of my typical book-like posts. I am still alive, but things have been incredibly busy as a “hired gun.” Contrary to popular belief among certain academic luminaries, being a “hired gun” and having the ability to build a practice are not mutually exclusive. I’m truly grateful for the opportunity to take care of many patients and build new bridges with colleagues where I spend the majority of my time working.
More content to come soon including some changes to this blog to better serve those who will look to this resource in the future to help them in their careers. Until then, enjoy SIR for those of you there, but drink the Kool-Aid in moderation please. I hope to meet some of you at OEIS soon.