Dear NESIR Colleagues,

As we prepare for our last meeting of this academic year, I would like to briefly review the past few months and let you know what we have planned for May.

After a few outstanding lectures by Dr. Barry Katzen in January and Dr. Chieh-Min Fan in February, we had a break for the SIR meeting in March. For those who could not be in San Diego, it was a great meeting where some of the challenges facing our specialty and the entire health care system were discussed. Despite all concerns, there is a lot of enthusiasm about the future of IR.

Coming back from SIR, we had Dr. Rahul Patel as our invited speaker in April. He gave us a great overview on transradial approach for vascular interventions and convinced a more than a few people in the audience to consider this as a valid option in selected patients.

I gave the members a brief update on our fundraising efforts, led by Dr. Shoey Ganguli. Despite all challenges, we are doing well financially and I believe we will reach our target of leaving the Society in great financial footing for the next year.

Looking forward, we are planning a great meeting in May to close the year. We will have Dr. Francisco Carnevale from the University of São Paulo speaking to us on his experience with prostatic artery embolization. As many of you know, this has been a prominent topic in IR for the past couple of years and Dr. Carnevale has played a pivotal role in the development of this new procedure. Many prominent members of the American IR community have travelled to São Paulo to learn from Dr. Carnevale. As a member of the NESIR, you will have an opportunity to attend one of his lectures right here in Boston.

Lastly, in May we will have a little more time to engage our colleagues and talk informally before the lecture. There will be an open bar and hors d'oeuvres between 6-7PM, followed by our traditional buffet dinner, with the lecture starting at 7:30PM.

I hope to see you all in May to celebrate the end of another academic year.

Best,

Herlen Alencar, MD

President, NESIR