“A good coach will make his players see what they can be rather than what they are.” Those are words ascribed to football coach Ara Parseghian, who guided the University of Notre Dame to two national championships in the 1960s and 70s. And that’s exactly what the coaches involved with the testing of the SVS Supervised Exercise Therapy (SET) app, designed to help treat peripheral arterial disease (PAD), do. It turns out an app’s bells and whistles, and trackers and counters, can do only so much— the coach who helps patients through is integral.

In celebration of the 75th year of the SVS, the Vascular Research Initiatives Conference (VRIC), typically held in early May, is moving this year to be held during the 2021 VAM in August. In a year when so much has been challenging, SVS president Ronald Dalman, MD, and VAM leadership considered how VAM could serve as a “homecoming” for all vascular surgeons.

The moving pieces that comprise the 2021 Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM), set to take place Aug. 18–21, are being assembled into a blockbuster whole. Though plenary sessions have yet to be structured, all of the invited sessions—“Ask the Experts,” breakfast and concurrent sessions, as well as postgraduate courses—are mapped out.

The year 2020 was one of firsts and of resilience. We had a plague of biblical proportions; civil unrest; fiery political and racial tensions; riots; polar vortices, where it was literally freezing in the Southwest; and, last but not least, the looming threat of Medicare cuts, limiting our patients’ access to care and fee cuts to all of our practices. All of this within the last year.

The Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery (APDVS) bestowed its first-ever Lifetime Achievement in Education Award on the association’s one-time president Jack L. Cronenwett, MD, during its annual Spring Meeting (March 26–27).

(A shorter version of this article can be found in the March 2021 Vascular Specialist.)

New officers are in place with the SVS Section on Outpatient and Office Vascular Care (SOOVC) Executive Committee.

The mobile app for the fifth edition Vascular Educational Self-Assessment Program (VESAP5)—for both Android and Apple operating systems— is now available. Apple users need to visit the App Store, while Android users should visit Google Play (play.Google.com).

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Foundation recognizes and thanks all SVS surgeons and physicians on National Doctors’ Day, which falls on March 30.

Despite it being a year unlike any other, the increased generosity of the SVS Foundation donors allowed for the mission work to continue as planned.