SIR Today

The Gold Medal, SIR’s highest honor, is awarded not only for extraordinary service to the Society but to those who have dedicated their past and present talents to advancing the quality of medicine and patient care through the practice of interventional radiology.

The Gold Medal presentations will take place on Sunday, April 12, during the Opening Plenary Session at 10:30 a.m.

Lindsay Machan MD, FSIR, is an interventional radiologist at Vancouver Hospital and an associate professor in the department of Radiology at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is also an associate member of the department of vascular surgery and the division of urology.

During his career, Dr. Machan has performed several first-in-human procedures including fluoroscopically guided prostatic stent, removable metallic urethral stent, paclitaxel-coated stent and paclitaxel-coated vascular stent placements. His first-in-Canada procedures include percutaneous atherectomy (excisional and rotational), uterine fibroid embolization, ovarian vein embolization and aortic stent grafting, among others. In 2006, he and Bill Hunter, MD, shared the Manning Foundation Innovation Award for developing and commercializing the paclitaxel-coated stent.

He was the co-editor of the 4th, 5th and 6th editions of Kandarpa’s Handbook of Interventional Procedures, the largest selling interventional radiology textbook. He has given over 700 invited lectures, including the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 2025 Charles T. Dotter Lecture.

A fellow of the Society of Interventional Radiology since 2000, Dr. Machan was honored with the SIR Foundation Leader in Innovation Award in 2015. He is also a distinguished fellow of the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological society of Europe and an honorary member of the Asia Pacific Society of Interventional Radiology. Dr. Machan is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Interventional Radiology (CAIR) and received CAIR’s Award for Career Achievement in 2020. In 2024, he was made an officer in the Order of Canada.

In 2025, SIR Today interviewed Dr. Machan in advance of his Charles T. Dotter lecture.

Can you tell us about yourself and your career?

Dr. Machan: I am an interventional radiologist at the University of British Columbia and Vancouver Hospital. I’m later in my career, and so I’ve lived through a lot of the evolution of interventional radiology.

I got my start here in Vancouver with a fellowship with one of the original interventional radiologists, Joachim Burhenne, MD, the first person to do a percutaneous gallstone extraction. From there, I was lucky enough to work in London at the Hammersmith Hospital under Professor David J. Allison, one of the first professors of radiology in the United Kingdom. He was co-editor of one of the definitive radiology textbooks at the time, and he was one of the first European practitioners of advanced embolization techniques. While there, I was also able to work alongside Andreas Adam, MD, FSIR.

I then went to work at the University of Pennsylvania, where I was able to work with Constantin Cope, MD, FSIR. He was one of the major inspirations in my career, and I was so lucky to be around him and exposed to his amazing mind and inquisitive nature. He’s the one who really formulated my thoughts on innovation.

I returned to Vancouver in the 1990s and have been here ever since. I’m fortunate, because when I started here, there was a very innovative vascular surgeon who I formed a collaborative endovascular group with—so I’ve learned about collaborating with other specialties and how important it is to have different people bringing different skill sets and knowledge to the table.

What are your clinical interests?

Dr. Machan: As with all IRs, my clinical interests are an inch deep and a mile wide. One of the best descriptions I’ve ever heard of IR is from an interview with Laura Findeiss, MD, FSIR, who said that interventional radiology fills a void in care. I’d never thought of it like that, but that’s exactly what we’ve done, especially early on. We filled a void in care.

Early in my career, we did all kinds of vascular and nonvascular interventions. As we went along and technology matured, my practice became more focused. My interests right now in particular are women’s health and venous disease. From a research perspective, I’m interested in biologically active devices as well as radiation reduction.

What are some opportunities you see for the field of IR?

Dr. Machan: Right now, everybody is talking about AI, especially generative AI. But AI can be used in several ways. When you think about it, radiologists are ideally set up to be data stewards for this new generation of technology. We are technically competent, have an understanding about the digitization of medicine, and understand the full clinical process. It’s a tremendous opportunity for us to affirm our place. In particular, one of the things we can do is use AI to quantify and demonstrate the immense value and capacity of IR, especially in real-world situations. Because of our skill sets, I think IR will be better poised to do that than a lot of other specialties.