How to become a neurointerventionist in South Africa

Why this matters

Ask five people how to become a neurointerventionist in South Africa and you will get five answers, most of them naming a course. Courses are the visible part of the pathway because they have websites and application forms. The part that actually determines whether you can practise — supervised training in an accredited unit — has neither, and is much harder to find out about.

This guide sets out both. It is written by a registrar for registrars, and it is an early draft: the requirements below are an orientation, and the authoritative source in every case is the body concerned.

The formal route

In South Africa the recognised route runs through SANIS, whose training guidelines follow the WFITN standards. In outline it requires:

1. Completion of diagnostic radiology training (FC Rad).
2. Supervised fellowship training at an accredited neurointerventional unit.
3. A defined training period with a procedural logbook and competency requirements, under an accredited programme director.
4. Participation in research, audit and ongoing assessment.

The courses, and what each one is

PLANET

The Pierre Lasjaunias Neurovascular Education Team course, an international programme descended from the International Master Degree Course in Neurovascular Diseases and widely regarded as the foundational teaching in interventional neuroradiology. It runs as sessions in different host countries, overseen by programme directors across several continents, and mixes didactic lectures with hands-on workshops and case-based panel discussion. Its published pages do not describe assessment arrangements — confirm those with the organisers if certification matters to you.

ECMINT

The European Course in Minimally Invasive Neurological Therapy, run by ESMINT — four themed courses over roughly two years, held at Oxford, covering skull base disease, aneurysms and subarachnoid haemorrhage, ischaemic stroke, and brain and spinal vascular malformations, alongside the underlying embryology, neuroanatomy, imaging and pharmacology. Each course ends in a formal quiz; an average across all four above the stated threshold makes you eligible to sit the ESMINT examination. You need not start at course one.

The ESMINT diploma (EDNI)

The European Diploma in Neurointervention, sat after the ECMINT cycle. It is a theoretical qualification: a written paper followed by a viva. It demonstrates structured knowledge to a European standard.

ESMINT skills courses

Practical, hands-on training, distinct from the ECMINT theory cycle. These become genuinely useful once you are already performing angiography — before that, the theory courses give you more per day.

How the courses relate to the formal route

These courses do a great deal of useful work. They build the theoretical foundation the supervised years are easier for having, they demonstrate sustained and structured interest in the field, and they strengthen an application for a fellowship or training post. A candidate who arrives with the anatomy, the embryology and the stroke and aneurysm theory already in place is a more capable trainee from the first week.

They sit alongside the formal route rather than within it. Neither PLANET, nor the ECMINT cycle, nor the diploma confers a scope of practice in neurointervention in South Africa, and none of them substitutes for supervised procedural training. The fellowship, the logbook and the accredited unit remain the route to independent practice, and are governed separately.

PLANET and ECMINT are best understood as complementary rather than competing. PLANET is the internationally established foundation, particularly strong on neurovascular anatomy and embryology; ECMINT is a structured theoretical curriculum delivered in shorter modules and leading to a formal diploma. Completing either makes the other more accessible.

• Courses build knowledge and strengthen an application. Supervised training builds competence.
• Much of the ECMINT anatomy, stroke and aneurysm content maps directly onto FC Rad neuroradiology, so the effort compounds rather than competing with your primary examination.
• FC Rad remains the foundation. Everything described here is built on top of it.

Getting into a training post

The published guidelines set out what training must contain. They do not describe how trainees are identified or how they enter an accredited programme, and arrangements differ between units and programme directors.

Rather than publish assumptions about that process, WIRS is seeking clarification directly from the units and programme directors concerned. In the meantime, a conversation with a programme director is the most reliable source, and this page will be updated as clearer information becomes available.

What to do as a registrar now

• Get exposure. Neurointerventional lists, stroke calls, angiography sessions — attendance is the currency.
• Keep a prospective logbook of cases seen, assisted and performed, with the indication. Start it today rather than reconstructing it later.
• Do the theory while you have time. The ECMINT content overlaps substantially with FC Rad neuro, so it compounds.
• Register interest early where waiting lists exist — a place two years out is still a place.
• Talk to the people running the units. Most of what is not written down is obtainable by asking.