Articles & Press Releases

The Basic and Translational Research Committee (BTRC) is the new name of the former Research and Education Committee.

Applications are due early in 2021 for a number of Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) and SVS Foundation awards, honors and grants.

Have you paid your 2021 Society for Vascular Surgery dues? If you haven’t, you’re missing access to all of the latest research in the Journal of Vascular Surgery publications.

While there is little doubt the pandemic has impacted each vascular surgeon and the SVS as a Society in numerous ways, the commitment and dedication of SVS committee, council and task force members to deliver on the mission has remained undaunted.

The SVS Document Oversight Committee—or the DOC—will be aligning with the SVS Quality Council in order to further its crucial work during the course of 2021.

The Postgraduate Education Committee is hard at work to try to provide the most compelling, timely educational material for SVS members this year, chair Vikram Kashyap, MD, tells Vascular Specialist.

The International Relations Committee has launched a new International Mentorship Program to provide experienced SVS academic mentors for members outside the United States who do not have access to individuals who can assist them in professional growth.

As 2020 brought both the prospect of significant reimbursement challenges for surgical services as well as the tremendous clinical and financial challenges of the pandemic, the SVS Government Relations Committee focused intensely on efforts to head off implementation of steep cuts to 2021 Medicare reimbursements.

The Clinical Practice Council, chaired by William Shutze, MD, has numerous ongoing and new projects and initiatives, including the new SVS Population Health Initiative.

Led by chair Peter Nelson, MD, the SVS Foundation Development Committee works with Foundation chair Peter Lawrence, MD, and the SVS Foundation Board to develop strategies to promote SVS member donations.

The Publications Committee is responsible for overseeing, among others, the Journal of Vascular Surgery (JVS) family, the Rutherford textbook and Seminars in Vascular Surgery. After conducting reviews and interviews, committee members as a group put forth candidates for the editorship of JVS and Rutherford to the SVS Executive Committee for its final decisions, according to committee chair Peter Henke, MD.

At the conclusion of a challenging 2020, we at the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) have a clear mission ahead: We must work with the U.S. Congress to avoid what military experts refer to as a “tragedy of the unprepared.”

New pocket guides of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) clinical practice guidelines and reporting standards are now available, with printed guides sent to all members.

The Quality Council has earmarked a major initiative for 2021, and it will involve sponsorship of the first official set of SVS Appropriate Use Criteria guidelines, focusing on claudication.

The Quality and Performance Measures Committee (QPMC) is tasked with monitoring and creating national performance measures that are relevant to vascular surgeons.

The SVS Communications Committee, equipped with three subcommittees, is a new addition for 2021.

The SVS Appointments Committee has made great efforts to be more transparent, diverse and equitable in recent years—a process its chair and members plan to continue.

Among the many projects of the SVS Coding and Reimbursement Committee, advocating appropriate coverage for vascular services continues to be a major focus. In 2021, the committee, led by chair Sunita Srivastava, MD, will continue to increase its coverage initiatives, working with government and private payers.

A grant from the SVS Foundation has helped amputees in the Fresno, Calif. area get up and walking more quickly than is typical.

The below are the references for the article about research opportunities within the Department of Veterans Affairs, which ran in the December 2020 Specialist. 

The last nine months took away much. The Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) was canceled. The Vascular Research Initiatives Conference (VRIC) suffered a similar fate—its content latterly resuscitated in virtual form last month. The traditional Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) presidential handover, too, followed an unorthodox route.

Humans are social animals, and, over time, they have found that their best times are spent in groups. We have just celebrated Thanksgiving, spending time with our most important group, our family, reflecting on our present life situation and giving thanks. And more holidays are to come.

Psychologists place great emphasis on the object permanence milestone, but object impermanence is the more brutal lesson. My experience is now familiar and commonplace. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have lost a parent during the pandemic. Our usual methods of closure have been stripped from us. People are dying in isolation, and the ones they leave behind must often grieve alone. Our failure to control the pandemic has had profound psychological consequences beyond the endless death toll. Our country has risen to similar challenges before, and I believe it will again if we learn from the mistakes we made this year. To accomplish this, we must create a complete account of the costs we have endured.

Applications for three Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Foundation awards are coming up early in the new year.