A society built by registrars, for the future of IR.

Interventional radiology is growing faster than the structures built to support the people training in it. Registrars encounter IR unevenly during general radiology training. Exposure to interventional neuroradiology and to emerging subspecialty domains is frequently incidental rather than deliberate, and the routes into an IR career are poorly signposted. These are workforce problems as much as educational ones, and they are unlikely to be solved by curriculum reform alone.

The Wits Interventional Radiology Society was founded on a simple conviction: that registrars are not only the beneficiaries of IR training, but can be its architects. WIRS is a registrar-led society operating across the Wits Radiology Circuit — Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital, Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital and Helen Joseph Hospital — and now comprises approximately 30 registrar members. To our knowledge, it is the first and currently the only registrar-led IR society of its kind in Africa.

We are organised around three pillars: Service Delivery, IR Education, and Community. Each exists because the others are insufficient alone. Education without clinical participation produces observers. Service without structure produces exhaustion. Neither endures without a community that carries the work forward as members rotate through and move on.

In a short time, our members have moved WIRS from concept to an operational multi-hospital network. We developed and implemented a registrar stroke-call roster supporting mechanical thrombectomy services at two academic centres, with members committing additional after-hours time to the acute stroke team. Our registrars have hosted a Wits stroke pathway workshop and attended a World Stroke Organization mechanical thrombectomy workshop. We maintain a structured research database spanning interventional neuroradiology, body IR and subspecialty domains, from which MMed topics and case reports are being developed. We have authored career-development material mapping realistic routes into IR, including South African training pathways, the Professor Steve Beningfield Fellowship at Groote Schuur Hospital, the CIRSE European Board of Interventional Radiology qualification, and international fellowship options.

Work now in development includes day-to-day IR protocols to support registrars at the point of clinical work, an IR lecture programme, an interventional oncology workshop, an INR symposium, and continued resource development for IR education.

None of this would be possible without the institutional support of our ex officio members: Prof. Sanyika, Head of Interventional Radiology; Prof. Mngomezulu, Head of Interventional Neuroradiology; and Prof. Mahomed, Academic Head of Radiology at Wits. Their sponsorship has given a trainee initiative the standing to do serious work.

Our ambition extends beyond one circuit. The design underpinning WIRS — trainee ownership, institutional sponsorship, and deliberate breadth — is transferable to other South African and African training environments seeking sustainable IR workforce development. If you are a registrar who wants to build that, rather than wait for it, you belong here.