Awards

2012 Leaders in Innovation Award

The Award is intended to recognize and promote innovation within interventional radiology, continuing IRs' historical development of innovative development that has revolutionized medicine over the last 30 years. It will acknowledge those individuals who have conceptualized and implemented an idea that has had an advantageous impact on the practice of interventional radiology. The innovation can be a device, technique, approach, clinical practice model, or anything having a significant improvement upon the quality of patient care or economics of interventional practice.

2011 Leaders in Innovation Award Recipient
Scott O. Trerotola, MD, FSIR, FACR

Scott O. Trerotola, MD, FSIR, FACR, is the Stanley Baum professor of radiology and professor of surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, where he is also associate chair and chief of vascular and interventional radiology. He received his medical degree in 1986 from the University of Pennsylvania before completing an internship in internal medicine at Union Memorial Hospital and a residency in diagnostic radiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, both in Baltimore, Md. At Johns Hopkins Hospital, Dr. Trerotola also completed fellowships in diagnostic radiology and interventional radiology.

Dr. Trerotola pursues research in hemodialysis and venous access as well as pulmonary arteriovenous malformation (PAVM) embolotherapy, among other topics. He holds eight patents on devices for interventional procedures, including several pertaining to a very successful mechanical thrombectomy device. His extensive contributions to the field of hemodialysis access interventions have helped shape role of IR in this field. In addition to technical and research contributions in this area, Dr. Trerotola was the sole interventional radiologist member of the original Dialysis Outcomes Quality Initiative clinical practice guidelines for vascular access, a document that has shaped hemodialysis access care for a generation. He has developed multiple techniques in widespread use in IR including balloon-assisted placement of large-bore gastrostomy, ultra-high pressure angioplasty, forceps removal of inferior vena caval filters and back bleeding treatment for arterial emboli during dialysis declotting, among others.

Dr. Trerotola is a strong advocate of research in IR and evidence-based practice, an increasingly important focus as health care reform develops. Among his more than 200 research and educational publications are multiple prospective randomized trials. His research efforts in education extend to mentorship as well, having served as mentor to dozens of students at Indiana University and the University of Pennsylvania; nearly all of these projects resulted in a first authored publication for the student. Several of his medical student mentees have earned awards and/or have had papers chosen for CME credit in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. Many of these students have gone on to careers in IR.

Dr. Trerotola was a member of the SIR Executive Council from 1998–2004 and served as chair for the 2001 SIR Annual Scientific Meeting. He chaired the SIR Educational Materials Committee and was editor of three SIR syllabi during that tenure. He has served on the editorial board of every major radiology journal and continues to be an active reviewer for multiple radiology and nephrology journals.

Dr. Trerotola has received tremendous recognition for his achievements, including awards for teaching, distinction in reviewing and for patient advocacy. He regularly appears on Best Doctors in America and Best Doctors in Philadelphia lists. In 2010, he received the Louis Duhring Outstanding Clinical Specialist Award from his institution, reflecting peer recognition of the strong clinical thrust now ingrained in IR. He has given invited lectures worldwide, including the inaugural Man-Chung Han lecture to the Korean Society of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology Society.

2010 Leaders in Innovation Award Recipient
Julio Palmaz, MD, FSIR

Julio C. Palmaz, MD, FSIR, received his MD in 1971 from the National University of La Plata, Argentina and completed his radiology specialty training at the University of California, Davis, in 1980. Dr. Palmaz began his professional career in 1974 at San Martin University Hospital, Argentina, and was chief of special procedures at Martinez Veterans Administration Hospital in 1981. In 1983, Dr. Palmaz joined the University of Texas Health Sciences Department of Radiology as chief of angiography and special procedures, and currently is Ashbel Smith Tenured Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio.

Dr. Palmaz conceived and developed the first clinically successful balloon expandable vascular stent in the early 1980s. Dr. Palmaz's initial device was used for the first successful abdominal aortic stent-grafts and transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts, now also common procedures throughout the world. This device has found applications beyond the arterial system, including veins (peripheral, central and pulmonary), the biliary ducts and the tracheobronchial tree. As such, it has become part of the standard armamentarium of a broad spectrum of medical specialties.

Dr. Palmaz has remained very active in basic research, with specific interest and productivity in the area of cellular and molecular response to intravascular metallic stent placement. He was also instrumental in the design and execution of early clinical trials in the application of stents in coronary, renal and iliac arteries. These trials became benchmarks for subsequent clinical investigations of metallic stents. Dr. Palmaz has 40 issued patents and is the author of 29 books or book chapters and 106 peer-reviewed publications. He is a member of the editorial board for Circulation and is a reviewer for several other journals. For two years in a row, his patent on the balloon-expandable stent was recognized as one of the "Ten patents that changed the world" published in Intellectual Property International magazine. His early stent research artifacts are now part of the medical collection of the Smithsonian Institutions. He continues to innovate on his initial designs, developing new endovascular devices.

Dr. Palmaz delivered the SIR Dotter Lecture in 2001 and was an SIR Gold Medalist in 2007. Dr. Palmaz has received many international awards, including an award from the Society of Cardiac Angiography and the Cardiovascular Institute of the South. In 2006 he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and became a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

2009 Leaders in Innovation Award Recipient
Sidney Wallace, MD, FSIR

The Award is intended to recognize and promote innovation within the Society of Interventional Radiology, continuing IR’s historical development of innovative development that has revolutionized medicine over the last 30 years. It acknowledges those individuals who have conceptualized and implemented an idea that has had an advantageous impact on the practice of interventional radiology. The innovation can be a device, technique, approach, clinical practice model, or anything having a significant improvement upon the quality of patient care or economics of interventional practice.

Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Wallace has been instrumental in advancing the knowledge and techniques used in interventional radiology around the world. He was one of the first to recognize IR’s unique role and has been an advocate for supervising patient care and taking an active role in the decision-making process. He has also been a staunch supporter of the role of research in IR and is one of the founders of the John S. Dunn Research Foundation Center for Radiologic Sciences at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Wallace has authored and coauthored 643 scientific papers and chapters. He holds 36 patents for devices and pharmaceutical agents, and worked closely with Dr. Cesare Gianturco on many of his inventions and developments. Among his many honors, Dr. Wallace has received the Antoine-Béclère Award from the French Radiological Society, as well as Gold Medals from SIR, the Gilbert Fletcher Society, the Japanese Society of Angiography and Interventional Radiology, and the American College of Radiology. He also received the first international Brazilian Gold Medal, and has been awarded the Charles Dotter Memorial Lecture from SCVIR and the Japanese International Symposium of Interventional Radiology and New Vascular Imaging, The Wallace Lecture from the Asian-Pacific Congress of Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiology, the John Benvenuto Award, Pendergrass Lecture and an Outstanding Achievement Award from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He has received the International Symposium of Endovascular Therapy (ISET) 2009 Career Achievement Award.

Dr. Wallace has served as a professor of radiology; chairman, Department of Diagnostic Radiology; head, Division of Diagnostic Imaging and deputy division head for research, Division of Diagnostic Imaging, at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He retired in August 1996.

2008 Leaders in Innovation Award Recipient
Ernest J. Ring, MD

Ernest J. Ring, MD exemplifies the qualities that are honored with this award. As a founding member of SIR and SIR Foundation, Dr. Ring’s contributions have shaped not only the Society, but the entire segments in the field of interventional radiology. After completing residency in Diagnostic Radiology and fellowship in Cardiovascular Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital and service in the US Navy, he joined the faulty of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in 1976 and began a career of excellence clinical and research productivity. While at Penn, he did ground breaking work in percutaneous angioplasty and became the leading researcher and innovator in biliary interventions in this country. He also made major contributions to our knowledge in embolization in trauma and hepatic neoplasms. In 1982 he moved to the University of California San Francisco and quickly built the IR section into a powerhouse. While there, he has made seminal contributions to our knowledge in transplant interventions and was a key contributor to the development of TIPS and related interventions. Along the way, he made major contributions to the development of tools that are now used daily in all these procedures. Working closely with Bill Cook and other early industry innovators, he designed many wires, catheters, drains and other key technologic advances that are now in routine use. He also trained many of our current leaders in IR, providing us new generations of outstanding interventionalists who continue in his tradition.

Dr Ring was also a key player in the transition of the SIR from a limited membership society to the broad-based specialty society that it is today. He served as president of SIR (then SCVIR) in 1989, and went on to serve as the SIR Foundation president (then CIRREF) in 1990. The Foundation honored the contributions of its founder by introducing the Dr. Ernest J. Ring Academic Development Grant Program in 2000, which is designed to provide support to IR faculty members early in their academic careers to allow time for the conduct of research.

Dr. Ring is an active member of several professional medical organizations, and is a fellow of both SIR and the American College of Radiology. He currently serves Chief Medical Officer of the University of California Medical Center at San Francisco.

Dr. Ring is the consummate academic interventional radiologist- teacher, physician, researcher and innovator and the SIR Foundation is pleased to honor him as with this year’s Leaders in Innovation Awardee.

2007 Leaders in Innovation Award Recipient
Robert White, Jr., MD

Jim Spies, MD; Robert White, Jr., MD

Robert White, MD, served SIR as president from 1984 to 1985 and has since continued to lead the specialty in clinical care and practice building. His concept of multidiscipline care for the treatment of hereditary hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT) has been adopted by physicians across the globe and he has successfully organized 21 international HHT Centers and ten centers in North America. White is currently the Director of the Yale University Vascular Malformation Clinical and Research Group, a “center without walls” which includes physicians from seven medical disciplines.

During his years at Johns Hopkins University, White participated in the development of four procedures new to the U.S.: occlusions of pulmonary arteriovenous malformation (PAVM), occlusion of varicocele, pulmonary valvuloplasty and balloon dilatation of coarctation restenosis.

White has authored 249 peer-reviewed publications and is a member of nine medical societies. He was awarded the SIR Gold Medal in 2000 and, in 2003, delivered both the Seventh Annual Charles J. Tegtmeyer Lecture at ISET and the David A. Dines Lecture at the Mayo Clinic. In 1985, White delivered the Eugene Pendergrass New Horizons lecture at RSNA, during which he stressed the importance of interventional radiologists caring for patients before, during and after a procedure.

Michael Soulen, MD, Chair, SIR Foundation Research Education Division, described White by stating, “Bob’s distinguishing contribution is that while others talked, he created a formal clinical service within a major academic training center, published on its structure and success, and propagated it through the specialty.”

Dr. White’s career has been a superior illustration of quality care and clinical practice, and he continues to teach by example, focusing on the importance of gathering a thorough patient history and making follow-up a part of every patient’s care.