Please Give, Because Every Gift Matters

Oct 22, 2018 Re-posted from the October 2018 issue of Vascular Specialist

A letter from the SVS Foundation Chair

Because …

That’s the simple – yet multifaceted — theme for our SVS Foundation Annual Report (just released and available at vsweb.org/ SVSF_Annual_Report_ 2018) and for our annual Giving Campaign.

The word resonates. It links the “why” with the “how” and also reflects the busy and productive past few years.

For example, after expanding our mission last year to include disease prevention and patient awareness and education, we have awarded our first Community Awareness and Prevention Grants.

We launched this grant because prevention and public awareness are critical in the fight against circulatory disease and because our community-based practitioners are in the front lines of this battle every day. We highlighted the three projects and SVS project administrators in August’s Vascular Specialist and in the report.

This grant is just one of the new 2018 Foundation initiatives we began to support the enhanced core mission. For example: To optimize the vascular health and well-being of patients and the public through support of research that leads to discovery of knowledge and innovative strategies, as well as education and programs, to prevent and treat circulatory disease.

• … Because patient education is critical to helping prevent circulatory diseases and provide help at early stages, we created brochures and other patient education materials on nine common issues, including PAD, smoking and carotid artery disease.

• ... Because some mid-career surgeon-scientists face an unanticipated loss of national grant money for a funding cycle, we launched a new Bridge Grant program to sustain critical research projects.

I hope you’ll read the annual report, which contains articles and information about what we do, how much money we raise and where it goes, why people give and the profound differences we can make in our research labs and in our communities.

The SVS Foundation touches every SVS member, from our academicians searching for solutions to our surgeons in private practice saving patients’ lives and limbs. We all share the same goal: improving patient care.

And because we must do more, we need your help. Please give today to support our expanded objectives. Because … every gift matters.

Give at vsweb.org/Give. ■

– R. Clement Darling III, MD

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