Excerpt

The 18th Annual Scientific Session of the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology was held in Chicago September 26-29, 2013, marking the 20th anniversary of ASNC. One of the giants of our field, Dr. Mario S. Verani, passed away in 2001 at the young age of 58 years. In his honor, the ASNC established an annual lecture both to remember the past and to contemplate the future. It was a tremendous privilege for me to present the 12th Annual Mario S. Verani, MD Memorial Lecture. Prior invited speakers (Table 1), all from academic institutions, have done a terrific job of documenting the major scientific contributions of our field and the perceived unmet needs. My career has been spent as a clinician in private practice, with nuclear cardiology as a subspecialty interest. Because there are several thousand similar subspecialists in the United States, I decided to focus on the unique challenges and opportunities of non-academic practice of nuclear cardiology. This topic seemed all the more appropriate because Mario was quite helpful to me during my early years in practice. His wonderful humor about life’s challenges, his optimism that all would turn out fine, and his encouragement that even with limited resources it was possible to perform high-quality imaging are among many of my fond memories of discussions with him. The following is a summary of my presentation. …