Ever since medical school and radiology residency at Johns Hopkins, I have been interested in the kidney’s structure and function. My exposure as a student and resident to Robert Heptinstall, and later at The University of North Carolina, to Carl Gottschalt, convinced me that research in the renal microcirculation would be intellectually and academically rewarding. I have been fortunate to collaborate with several gifted investigators outside of radiology who recognized that my use of renal microangiography could contribute to their projects. Nephologists, pathologists and urologists such as Bill Finn, Bill Henrich, Gary Hill and Floyd Fried have encouraged and influenced my work. In addition, the SUR, particularly in its earlier years, provided me with contacts and collaborations necessary to the success of my projects. Noted radiologists in the SUR like Milt Elkin, John Hodson, Howard Pollack, Bruce Hillman, and Jeff Newhouse and the innovative angiographer, Joe Bookstein, though our collaboration (Renal Microvascular Disease, 1980, Little, Brown, & Co.) also gave my work important visibility. Of course none of this could have occurred without the support and encouragement of my former UNC chair, Jim Scatliff and the James Picker Foundation.

Although I have been involved with and served many worthwhile state and national radiology organizations, the SUR has been the one group to which I owe the most and which is almost like family. During my board participation and leadership years, I was involved in shepherding the inevitable and mostly healthy collaboration between the SUR and the SGR. The resulting Abdominal Radiology Consortium (ARC) was primarily created to optimize the appeal of our annual post-graduate course, and it has been a very successful venture. As the SUR and SGR explore even closer administrative and clinical association, I hope that the unique identities of both our organizations will remain to support members of our subspecialties as the SUR has supported me throughout the years.