Last week I was honoured to be nominated and sworn in as President of IRSA, which is the national association for interventional radiologists for Australia and New Zealand. Over the past 4 years I was on the executive as the secretary and then treasurer, under the previous president Prof Gerard Goh, who did a stellar job of moving the society forward during his period as president.
IRSA is a registered charity and engages with regulatory and industry on lots of matters key to the future of the specialty. During my term as president I’m especially passionate about growing awareness and educating doctors and patients alike about the full range of minimally invasive image guided procedures that are now available. It’s often a lack of awareness that these therapies exist that means patients are offered more invasive surgery or indeed only offered comfort measures when compelling new developments in IR offer minimally invasive alternatives.
I’m also keen to work together with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists and other key groups for our vision of IR having a dedicated pathway for training and a more defined structure as a specialty. There are lots of intelligent, passionate doctors involved in IR and I am keen to foster collaboration amongst us and also to reach out more to our colleagues in hospital and community based medicine to work together for the good of patient outcomes.
