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November 2022 | Issue 88
“Put ego aside” to keep patient outcome the priority during multidisciplinary collaboration
“If it were easy, this session would not be here.” These are the words of Jens Ricke (University Hospital Munich, Munich, Germany), who drew attention to the self-evident nature of the difficulties involved in multidisciplinary collaboration during an expert roundtable discussion at the recent Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) annual meeting (10–14 September, Barcelona, Spain). Titled ‘If you are not at the table, you will be on the menu’, the discussion participants, who presented perspectives on multidisciplinary work from their various societies, kept returning in the subsequent question and answer section of the session to one key message. They underlined that while vying to make your voice heard at multidisciplinary team meetings is vital, this should not be motivated by ego, rather, by the common goal of what is best for the patient based on clinical effectiveness and patient outcome.
R
aman Uberoi (John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK) began the discussion with a question for vascular surgeon Eric Verhoeven (General Hospital Nuernberg, Paracelsus Medical University Nuernberg, Nuernberg, Germany) and Stefan Müller-Hülsbeck (Academic Hospitals Flensburg, Flensburg, Germany) on the “stresses and strains” that arise from multidisciplinary collaboration. “You have both made the point that we ‘forget patients’— how much do you think that is driven by egos?” Verhoeven was first to acknowledge that a little bit of ego may not be a bad thing, pointing out that “without that [type of] personality”, it can be difficult to convey your specialist perspective effectively and persuasively. He recounted how he was able to influence the clinical setup at his hospital, so as to have “the whole personnel working together in the same location”—this includes radiologists, vascular surgeons, and nurses and
technicians specially trained in radiology and endovascular techniques. Emphasising the “big benefit” this approach affords their patient-centric service, Verhoeven went on to share how they have a daily “vascular patient meeting”—even the name puts the focus on the patient, as opposed to the interdisciplinary makeup of the clinical team behind the care. MüllerHülsbeck picked up the discussion to label this multidisciplinary way of working as “an ideal playground”, which should be harnessed to “put the patient first”. Collaboration can yield highly successful outcomes, which, at Müller-Hülsbeck’s centre, takes the following form: “if we need, for certain reasons, surgical cutdown, we call the vascular surgeon, and vice versa, if they need help from the interventional radiologist”. This collaborative way of operating is how they go about treating thoracic and abdominal aneurysms in Nuernberg and Flensburg, delegates heard, with a strong emphasis on “speaking a clear language” to facilitate cross-specialty communication for the benefit of the patient. Part of this clarity when communicating, Müller-Hülsbeck detailed, is establishing “clear rules that are defined in advance”. This is so that the answer to the question of “who does what with the patient?” is not dictated
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Will COVID-19’s hybrid meeting legacy last? Year three of the COVID-19 pandemic and yet much now feels unrestricted and ‘back to normal’. This can certainly be said of meetings—at least in Europe and the USA—which, throughout 2020 and some of 2021, took place online, but have returned to in-person in recent months. However, transatlantic, intra-European and American travel, though possible and permitted, has not been plain sailing (flying?), even this year. Therefore, many societies, within interventional radiology (IR) or otherwise, for 2021/2022, have opted for a hybrid setup, where delegates have had the choice of accessing sessions, or to travel to the physical venue. Several society spokespeople relay to Interventional News their plans for the hybrid and in-person evolution of some of the IR calendar’s main meetings, based on how those from the last couple of years have panned out. PARAG J PATEL (MEDICAL COLLEGE of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA), president of the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), provides the perspective of a society that has, deliberately, not offered hybrid attendance options. The reason being, he explains, that “this allows us to provide a consistent experience to all who participate, ensuring valuable learning, interactions with speakers, and connection to the materials.” So, this year’s Society of Interventional Radiology annual meeting (SIR; 11–15 June, Boston, USA) was in-person only, and 2021’s exclusively online, after the 2020 meeting, scheduled for late March, was cancelled. However, Patel notes, the SIR 2022 plenary sessions were available via livestream, and saw 230 viewers tune in. This reflects where the society stands on the question of a hybrid future for meetings right now, and Patel details how the hybrid model has, by no means, been discounted by SIR, which is “exploring the possibility of deploying hybrid models at future meetings to allow more IRs to participate in the way in which they prefer to or are able to attend. We know that travel and time off can be a challenge, and hybrid models enable accessibility from an attendance standpoint.” Continued on page 4
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