The interventional radiologist as "clinician": what does it mean? CanMEDS for the interventional radiologist.

There is a large movement within the field of interventional radiology (IR) and various related organizations (including the Society of Interventional Radiology and the Canadian Interventional Radiology Association) for interventional radiologists to become more clinical. This is seen as the necessary next step for the specialty as it continues to evolve and grow. Here, we take a novel approach to the implications of becoming a full-fledged clinician. We do this in the context of the Canadian Medical Education Directions for Specialists (CanMEDS) framework, developed in the early 1990s with the support of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) in response to changing dynamics within health care and medical education. The CanMEDS framework defines the 7 domains of competency or roles of the specialist physician: professional, manager, advocate, collaborator, scholar, communicator, and medical expert. We suggest that these roles can be adapted to define the basis of the clinician interventional radiologist, and we believe they may be employed to teach current and future IR trainees how to fill what is hoped to be their future role. We provide a brief history of the CanMEDS project, define the 7 domains of competencies, and summarize how they apply to the clinician interventional radiologist.