The Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) has established a new office based in Vienna, Austria to head the society's education and research programs and from 2006 onwards, to take over the running of their annual meeting.
Daniel Waigl, who took up the new position of CIRSE Executive Director in January this year, told Interventional News the office grew out of a strategic plan to identify the needs of the society and its position in Europe. The new Vienna-based team will, over the course of 2005, gradually take over the society's business from the older CIRSE office in Zurich.
The new office will also look at forging closer links with national interventional radiological societies and other related institutions in Europe, working with them towards education and certification outcomes.
"I think there is a need for a European Society of Interventional Radiology which takes care of more than what it probably has done in the past," Waigl said.
"The focus of CIRSE in the next two or three years will definitely be education. We would like to offer education to radiologists all over Europe, including Eastern Europe as I think it's in everybody's interest that interventional radiology as a profession becomes stronger there."
CIRSE also hopes to maintain close links with the Japanese interventional radiology community (Japan's society of interventional radiology and CIRSE sharing the same official scientific journal, CVIR) as well as with other interventional radiological societies in Asia. For CIRSE 2005, 10-14 Sept, Nice, France, a strong link has already been established with Korea; a special session, CIRSE Meets Korea, has been organised for the congress.
CIRSE has a very prosperous partnership with the US, in particular, the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), with whom it is in cooperation regarding joint registries and standards of practice documents.
"The implementation of strategic decisions has started and it is exciting to be part of the process", said Waigl.
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