Articles & Press Releases

23 Health Care Organizations Petition Congress for Help with Labor Cuts

Continuing resolution to fund the government disregards need to protect patient access to care. WASHINGTON, December 2, 2021 – Congress is on the brink of allowing massive Medicare cuts to go into effect at the start of the new year based on the language of the continuing resolution

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media ContactBeth Richmanbrichman1@gmail.com312-806-8999

Findings Reinforce Vascular Surgeons’ Value for Trauma Centers

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) urges Congress to stop the harmful Medicare cuts that will take effect in less than two months and will limit patient access to needed care; Majority of the U.S. House supports stopping the cuts.

Organizations representing more than one million physician and non-physician health care providers unite to protect care for the millions of seniors who rely on the Medicare program.

A large single-center retrospective study reveals the risk of acute kidney injury (AKI) following pharmacomechanical thrombolysis (PMT) for lower extremity deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is a high as 22%.

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) has released updated clinical practice guidelines accompanied by an implementation document on the management of patients with extracranial carotid artery disease.  Since stroke prevention related to carotid artery disease is of major interest to vascular surgeons, the documents aim to use the existing clinical evidence to ensure patients with atherosclerotic occlusive disease in the carotid arteries receive appropriate treatment and care.

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) has released a new clinical practice guideline to ensure that patients with aneurysms of the popliteal arteries (located behind the knee) receive appropriate treatment and care. Aneurysms of the popliteal artery are the most common aneurysms outside of the brain and abdominal aorta.

Further stratification according to preprocedural symptoms in patients undergoing transfemoral carotid artery stenting (TFCAS) improves the preoperative risk assessment, a review of the Society of Vascular Surgery’s Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) data suggests.

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS), the leading not-for-profit, professional medical society on establishing causes and treatments for vascular disease, today announced its officers for 2021-2022. Several officers shifted roles and Dr. Joseph L. Mills was elected vice president at the SVS annual business meeting held virtually on June 16, 2021.

Over the course of the last year, the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) has been on a journey toward fostering greater diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). From the nadir of #Medbikini almost a year ago, the SVS Executive Board has since embraced and published a report from the SVS DEI Task Force—now a full-fledged committee—that called for action and change.

“What do you mean your partner? Does that mean a man?” These were among the questions one of my mentors asked me when we were discussing my list of pros and cons regarding the vascular surgery residency training programs to which I would apply. “Yes, my partner is a man.” The expected “oh…” was a reply I heard going to research meetings and throughout the residency interview trail. Unclear was whether this “oh” was one of disappointment, a nervous response, or concern if I would “fit” in vascular surgery. This “oh” haunts me because, in one short utterance, all of my accomplishments can be easily stripped away.

This year, the two major meetings of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) that involve the presentation of scientific research are being housed in one tent. The Vascular Research Initiatives Conference (VRIC), typically held in May and geared to translational research, will be held over two sessions Thursday and Friday at the 2021 Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM). More than 25 abstracts will be presented in four sessions covering arterial remodeling and discovery science for venous disease; vascular regeneration, stem cells and wound healing; atherosclerosis and the role of the immune system; and aortopathies and novel vascular devices.

While the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects dominated 2020–21 fiscal year—including the cancellation of the live 2020 Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM)—it did not deter progress on many important initiatives. “When covid hit, it intensified our focus on what was truly important: our members, their patients and the SVS as their Society,” said Executive Director Kenneth M. Slaw, PhD. “That focus was sustained the past 15 months and it has led to innovation and an unprecedented volume of member value programs.” He outlined important highlights from the fiscal year that ended March 31—just more than a year after the pandemic was declared—and the vital initiatives that continue to move forward.

The United States has been living through some charged times recently. Our profession is not immune to these conflagrations. In recent times, minority members of the diverse specialty of vascular surgery have seen people who look like them come under attack. And there are politicians and other actors who make it their mission to try to divide us. Against this backdrop, I will relate a personal journey of confronting discrimination and, ultimately, of hope and acceptance.

Kathryn Bowser, MD, a member of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee, talks to Justin Michel, 29, who identifies as a non-binary trans masculine person, about the patient experience navigating medical care as an individual of minority sexual identity.

Organizers stress that the best way to experience the 2021 Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) is in-person, surrounded by friends and colleagues, participating in small-group sessions and seeing all the devices and information available in the Exhibit Hall. All the abstract-based plenary sessions will be live-streamed, as will four international events, specialty lectures and the two presidential addresses. A total of 15 Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits can be earned from among the streamed sessions.

A few years ago, in his presidential address to the Midwestern Vascular Surgical Society, Mark Mattos, MD, spoke eloquently about the need to “protect our specialty.” A large part of this, he argued, is protecting our patients; no other specialty in medicine can provide the type of comprehensive vascular care that we offer. The daily reality we all face is the potential for declining Medicare reimbursement for our services.

I doubt many people remember a specific time they watched C-SPAN, let alone the exact date. But on Dec. 18, 2010, there I was, in my Durham, North Carolina, apartment, watching the U.S. Senate vote on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010. Up until 1993, the military forbade openly gay people from serving, even though it was common knowledge that gay men and women have served this country in every war.

Registration for the live, in-person 2021 Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) has begun—and organizers promise you won’t want to miss the meeting. VAM will be Aug. 18 to 21 in beautiful San Diego, California. Educational programming will be presented across all four days of the conference. The Exhibit Hall will be open Aug. 19 and 20. The registration and housing kick-off is especially welcome, say Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) leaders, after the COVID-19 pandemic forced cancellation of VAM 2020 and also prompted SVS to move this year’s VAM from June to the August dates.