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 Society for Vascular Surgery® Vascular Quality Initiative® (SVS VQI) recently notched yet another milestone when it welcomed its 500th participating center to the registry. Now, with 513 centers, 500,000 procedures, and 3,000 participating physicians entering cases across 12 different vascular procedures, the VQI has experienced significant growth since its inception in 2011.

 “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.”

Q: What propelled you into choosing vascular surgery as a career? And being a lifelong learner, who provided you with the guidance to move forward with your career trajectory?

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

Through working together, and with the council acting somewhat as the “clearinghouse,” different committees won’t be duplicating efforts on quality issues, said Dr. Larry Kraiss, chair of the new council. “We won’t be working in silos,” he said.

The Board of Directors named members of the new council at its meeting in June.

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.

That and other vascular issues were decided in November, when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services published the 2019 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MFS) and the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System (HOPPS) rules.

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.

On SVSConnect, members can find and participate in discussions on a wide variety of topics, such as:

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

As of March 1, SVS’ building address will be 9400 W. Higgins Road, Rosemont, Ill. The new HQ building was built to optimize 21st Century health society management and is minutes from O’Hare International Airport. The building is owned by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

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.

Taking a page from the popular television show, “Shark Tank,” a panel of experts will “grill” applicants submitting SVS Foundation Clinical Research Seed Grants applications. “We think this will be pretty popular,” said Vik Kashyap, MD, chair of the SVS Postgraduate Education Committee.

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