Establishing surveillance clinics: the road to success.

Interventional radiology interacts with all medical disciplines and historically has not had a patient base of its own. The specialty has depended upon referrals for procedures (often complex) and not referrals for the global management of the disease process or patient. Because of this, when referrers develop catheter-based skills, referrals to interventional radiology drop and competition for primary care physician referrals increase; a double strike.