As I reflect upon the past year, 2018 has certainly made a mark for addressing burnout among medical professionals, enforcing wellness, and targeting implicit and explicit gender bias in medicine and surgery.

 “The Truth About Leadership,” by Barry Posner and James M. Kouzes, describes 10 critical “truths” about leadership. In this latest column highlighting the evidence-based behaviors and attributes that define great leadership, we focus on “The Best Leaders are the Best Learners.”

To coordinate quality issues throughout the Society for Vascular Surgery, the SVS has created a new standing council: the SVS Quality Council.

SVS actively advocates on behalf of SVS members on issues that affect vascular surgery practices. Sometimes this brings positive outcomes for vascular surgeons, such as last month, when devastating cuts in the pricing for the vascular ultrasound room were avoided.

The water cooler is about to open for conversation.

SVS’ new online water cooler, that is, SVSConnect. Our new online community is the place to be for collaboration, engagement and communication, not to mention enhanced services for our members.

The Society for Vascular Surgery is moving into the future, both literally and figuratively.

For many years, vascular/thoracic surgeon Dr. Paul Brown has contributed to foundations for the societies to which he belongs and to other charitable organizations.

Education Front and Center at Vascular Annual Meeting

Sharks and giants are getting starring roles at the 2019 Vascular Annual Meeting. Both will be part of featured sessions at the meeting, set for June 12-15 near Washington, D.C.

Dear Friends: I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving and that you also had an opportunity to review our recent message about making a year-end contribution to the SVS Foundation.

If you haven’t already donated, #GivingTuesday would be the ideal time to do so.

The Society for Vascular Surgery is creating a private online community, SVSConnect, with a number of resources for SVS members and their peers.