The holidays are close upon us, and many Society for Vascular Surgery members will be shopping online this month and next.

The management of the severely injured trauma patient often requires delicate coordination among multiple specialties, and multiple separate operative procedures are often necessary.

The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) has submitted comment letters to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on two proposed rules that directly affect SVS members: the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment Systems (HOPPS).

Vascular surgeons are being encouraged to take consideration of a set of talking points about the risks and benefits of paclitaxel-equipped devices—developed by a multispecialty panel of medical societies—in discussions with their patients.

Julie Ann Freischlag, MD, the first and so far only female president of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS), will be the next president of the American College of Surgeons (ACS).

Members asked; SVS listened. The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) has launched a Branding Toolkit to help its members brand the specialty in order to elevate and differentiate their practices. This first set of branding tools tells referring physicians what vascular surgeons do and why they are critical partners when it comes to treating their patients with circulatory disease.

The vascular system is like the highway of the body – composed of blood vessels including arteries, veins and capillaries. Vascular disease is any condition of the almost 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the body; any complication along this highway can cause problems and health risk. In most cases, however, vascular conditions are highly treatable, often without surgery. Two common vein conditions include spider veins and varicose veins, but what are the differences?

By Beth Bales

To know where to go, you first have to know the starting point.

“WE CANNOT ADEQUATELY measure our progress in the SVS on diversity, equity and inclusion if we do not have the requisite data to measure,” said Society for Vascular Surgery president Ronald L. Dalman, MD.

He is asking all SVS members to take the simple action of completing the upcoming member census and survey in November/December and help the SVS build a more robust database regarding demographics, and member interests and priorities.

By Beth Bales

Following a year of study and including more than 40 separate goals, objectives and requested actions, the SVS Executive Board has received, reviewed and embraced the report of the SVS Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Task Force as a blueprint for response and change.

IT NOW HAS BEGUN THE TASK OF implementing the report and its recommendations, which means integrating it throughout the structure of the Society. The plan, said SVS president Ronald L. Dalman, MD, must be comprehensive and “worthy of the detail included in the report.”

Let’s start with our mission statement: We at the SVS Political Action Committee (PAC) exist as the fundraising arm for the advancement of the legislative priorities of the SVS. Through education and advocacy, we interface with legislators regarding key issues and legislation impacting all vascular surgeons and the patients for whom we care.