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.

Scott Craig Goodwin, MD, MBA, FSIR, is internationally recognized for being one of the earliest providers pioneering uterine fibroid embolization (UFE). Starting in 1996 his group worked diligently on establishing the indications, safety and efficacy of the procedure and followed with the training/proctoring/advising of hundreds of physicians across the United States and the world so that the procedure would be widely available to women.

He has given 148 national and international invited lectures and has 92 publications in peer-reviewed journals, authoring or co-authoring 15 first-in-kind UFE publications, including reports on the largest UFE study ever conducted. He was invited to write a review article on UFE that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. He has over 5,000 citations (ResearchGate) and an estimated H-index of 38. In the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (JVIR) Celebrates 25 Years of Innovation 1990–2015 publication, two of Dr. Goodwin’s papers were listed as landmark publications in the field. In 2015, two of his groups’ papers were named as being cited in the top 100 cited publications in the radiology literature. 

In 2023, SIR Foundation received a $500,000 donation in his name to study adenomyosis. 

He is a past president of SIR (2013–2014) and has held many national leadership roles, served as an American Board of Radiology (ABR) oral examiner (2005–2014), and received the ABR Lifetime Service Award. He has been a reviewer for Radiology, JVIR, Fertility & Sterility, and Obstetrics & Gynecology, as well as several other journals. He has been repeatedly listed among America’s Top Doctors and is an Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. 

Dr. Goodwin has been instrumental in his roles in recognizing the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion. He retired in June 2025 and has maintained a volunteer appointment at the University of Arizona, where he still teaches, and is a professor emeritus at UCI. 

Dr. Goodwin shared a person, place and thing that has continued to spur his passion for IR.

Who inspired me

Dr. Goodwin: The first and most important formative contributors to my development were my parents. Although they both came from poor and uneducated backgrounds they understood and imparted to me the value of knowledge and education. Despite the austerity of my childhood, they endeavored to provide as many learning opportunities as they could. They also emphasized character and integrity. My father often mentioned the old adage, “the cream rises to the top”. Later in life I came to understand the relationship of this adage to another saying, “There is no limit to what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit”.

In other words, focus on doing quality work with good people for the benefit of others, and everything else will follow. 

In the lab, my mentor, Juan F. Lois, MD, made the biggest professional impact on me. He was always calm and unflappable and quite simply more talented than any interventional radiologist with whom I have worked. I have always thought that if I could just match his level then I would have truly arrived. Thank you, Juan.  

I would truly be remiss if I did not mention the two icons of neuro-interventional radiology, Gary Duckwiler, MD, and Fernando Vinuela, MD, who saved my life in 1997, at the age of 39, following my paradoxical cerebral embolus. Without them I might not be here today, and at the very least would not have been able to continue my career. I am forever indebted and profoundly grateful. I find it happily ironic that practitioners in my chosen career path were there to intervene when I most needed it.

Without the hundreds of collaborators, co-authors and early UAE adopters, whatever I may have achieved would not have been possible. I am particularly grateful to one of the earliest adopters, John Lipman, MD, FSIR, who has the world’s largest UAE practice who made a major grant in my name to SIR Foundation to support UAE research. 

What inspired me

Dr. Goodwin: The “what” is IR itself. After a year of research in college doing cardiothoracic surgery on canine models in search of a cardioplegic solution, I thought I might become a surgeon. However, in medical school I became drawn to diagnostic radiology because I found the challenge of combining clinical presentations with imaging findings to arrive at a diagnosis fascinating. Unfortunately, I started floundering early in my DR residency. I missed frequent patient interaction, and the immediacy of the feedback when providing patient care. Although I understood the importance of the contributions of DR to diagnosis and follow-up, the contribution felt remote and somewhat intangible to me. What a revelation my first rotation on the IR service was! Patient after patient, all day long, and an immediate understanding of the diagnostic and/or therapeutic implications of those interactions. The icing on the cake were the endless opportunities to be creative—every day provided chances for developing new knowledge to the betterment of patient care.

Where I was inspired

Dr. Goodwin: Without a doubt, UCLA is my “where.” The UCLA research resources were exceptional. We had an animal lab and vivarium in the same building as our offices and clinical labs, easily obtainable intramural funding, over 50% unfunded research time and robust research personnel support including two coordinators and a research nurse. In addition, we had five fellows engaged in research, and many medical and undergraduate students working with us.

I have found that the best definition of luck is “when preparation meets opportunity”, and I was very lucky with my research career.

Specifically, the “opportunity” presented itself when we became aware of the first work done by Jacques-Henri Ravina, Jean-Jacques Merland and their collaborators on UFE. The richness of the “preparation” at UCLA was many fold. In addition to the above enumerated resources, I was fortunate to have the UCLA Chairman of OB/GYN, Alan DeCherney, MD, and his faculty member, Bruce McLucas, MD, very supportive of UAE from the outset. Without the depth and breadth of the research culture at UCLA and the interdepartmental collaboration with OB/GYN, I can’t imagine how we could have been nearly as productive in our investigatory endeavors.