I hadn't been to ISET in many years until this past month when I decided that a week in Miami didn't sound horrible (even though I'm not a huge fan of Miami; I have my reasons but that's for another post). Truth be told, as I get older, I find myself increasingly intolerant of the cold so a few days in a warmer environment sounded enticing. Ironically, this year's winter in CO has been incredibly mild by anyone's standards. But I also had a few bucks left in my academic account to burn, so ISET here I come.
ISET really pioneered the whole "live case" thing at a meeting. Initially, it was innovative and really interesting to watch in real time while the MVI crew did live cases which were "beamed in" from MVI and moderated by Barry or Jim (who would be flying back and forth from MVI to the Fontainebleu hotel via helicopter. Seriously.) But over the years, the cases started to feel like NASCAR: how far could they push the boundaries? Were we watching for the successes or the horrific crashes? From watching Zemel deploy a Gore contralateral limb outside of the main body, to seeing the entire infrapopliteal arterial circulation thrombose after cryoplasty (remember that awesome technology?), sometimes it got a little too out there. Case selection is everything and sometimes it felt like the cases were edging toward the abyss. But still, credit to the MVI guys for pioneering this educational device. Live cases are now ubiquitous at large vascular intervention-oriented meetings and that's because the MVI guys did it first (as far as I know).
This year, they gave a little tribute to Shaun Samuels at this year's meeting. After all, he had been there for over a decade and had trained many fellows, and was an integral part of their practice. Shaun was also the founding director of the Clinical Interventional Oncology meeting back in 2009. I am proud to say that I was a frequent sounding board for Shaun while he was planning those first few years of CIO which was a weekend meeting as a lead-in to ISET which started on Monday. The first year, CIO drew about 150 people. The next year, it drew almost 350. It eventually spun off into its separate meeting. Shaun deserves all of the credit for the success of the meeting- it was His Baby. It is also important to acknowledge that the success of CIO kept ISET afloat when their attendance was flagging. Shaun did a great job of developing a unique program that was primarily for clinicians- he wouldn't tolerate lectures that got too pointy-headed. He insisted that the content had to have practical, useful, and relevant information for real clinicians. And people loved it.
Unfortunately, this year's tribute didn't mention this. It also didn't mention a lot of other important information about Shaun. Regardless, he would've fucking hated it. I could just hear him: "POWERPOINT?! You're summing up my entire fucking life on a few POWERPOINT slides?! Jesus fuck! Have I died and gone to Microsoft hell?!"
Graciously, the MVI crew invited Sharon (Shaun's ex-wife) and his daughter Mia to the meeting so they could witness what was ultimately a pretty lame tribute, if I'm being honest. The only problem was that Sharon didn't get the invite until 7:30 AM, about 30 minutes before the start of the tribute. Sharon told me that she had already dropped Mia off at school otherwise they might've have tried to make it in time. I'm sorry, I love you MVI guys but what the fuck.
I wrote this as my final post about Shaun, but in a secret way, I hope it isn't. I'll keep writing stuff about him so there's some record (albeit spotty and sporadic) of him being on this earth, being the singular person that he was, and the friend that I miss.
Nota bene: Shaun was a stickler about writing. He wouldn't tolerate a poorly written piece of anything, whether in the newspaper or a scientific journal. He was contemptuous of people who couldn't write creatively or with style and individuality (or who used, god forbid, bad grammar). I am, in all honestly, writing these posts with that in mind; that if Shaun was reading this, he'd grudgingly approve, with limited edits.