Fellowships & Education

Vascular and Interventional Radiology (VIR) represents one of the most dynamic and exciting fields in medicine today. Major surgical procedures, many of them having significant perioperative morbidity and mortality, have now been replaced by minimally invasive VIR procedures that can often be performed on an outpatient basis.

The VIR service at the University of Washington performs a full spectrum of vascular and nonvascular procedures in adult and pediatric populations. Included among these are diagnostic angiography, percutaneous angioplasty and stenting, embolization therapy, thrombolysis, biliary and renal interventions, and vascular access. Some of our major areas of current interest include abdominal and thoracic endografting, carotid stent placement, oncologic interventions (chemoembolization and radiofrequency ablation), and spine stabilization procedures (vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty). The section is also very active in developing new techniques for the management of venous disease, including venous ablation for saphenous reflux an gonadal vein embolization.

The VIR section at UW is an active clinical service, with daily outpatient clinics, an inpatient service, and active participation by midlevel providers. We enjoy a collegial relationship with our partners in vascular surgery, so that our VIR fellows are able to spend time on the vascular service and in the operating room, focusing upon vascular patient evaluation and management. We expect to have a similar program in place with cardiology in the near future, so VIR fellows will also have the opportunity to learn basic cardiac catheterization techniques.

The overall goal of the VIR training program at UW is to merge imaging expertise with superb clinical skills. Image-guided intervention is the future of medicine, and clinically-oriented imagers are leading the way.