Dr. Jason K. Wagner, M.D., M.S., resident at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Heart and Vascular Institute, was the 2015 recipient of the SVS Vascular Surgery Trainee Advocacy Travel Scholarship. He spent time during the 2016 Vascular Annual Meeting talking with members of Congress and their staff. Below is his report on the experience, with more information about the scholarship following.
The holidays are upon us. This year you can do your shopping and do a good deed for the Society for Vascular Surgery at the same time.
Visit the Amazon Smile program, which offes a simple way to support the SVS Foundation every time you shop at Amazon.com. It costs you nothing beyond the cost of that cashmere sweater in your shopping cart.
Vascular surgeons working with the Veterans Administration face unique challenges. To help meet them, the Society for Vascular Surgery created a committee specifically for those members.
The VA Vascular Surgeons Committee was the brainchild of Immediate Past President Dr. Bruce A. Perler, and the group held its first organizational meeting in January.
The Society for Vascular Surgery extends its condolences to the family of Dr. Denton Cooley, one of our vascular surgery pioneers, who passed away Nov. 18, 2016 at the age of 96.
A long-time member of the Society and a lifelong resident of Houston, Texas, Dr. Cooley was an undisputed leader in the field of vascular surgery. In 1968 he performed the first successful heart transplant in the U.S. and a year later implanted the first artificial heart. He was founder and surgeon-in-chief of Texas Heart Institute. He developed many of the vascular procedures we still use today.
It was my privilege to interview Dr. Alan M. Dietzek. He is Chief of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut, current IAC board president, and president-elect of the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery. As our series continues to explore "what defines success in leadership,” my charge for Dr. Dietzek was to focus on how he enables others to act and forms effective care and office teams.
In his seminal work “Democracy in America,” published in 1835, the French historian Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the drive for various communities to unite “in association” was a unique and distinguishing attribute to the newly developing democracy in America. “Americans of all ages, all conditions, all minds constantly unite,” he wrote. “There is nothing that deserves more to attract our regard than the intellectual and moral associations of America.
“I would love to see more vascular surgeon-led sites participate and more physicians participate more fully”
Vascular surgeons have the opportunity to help create standards re, track patients who need inferior vena cava filters removed and, ultimately, set guidelines for the treatment of thromboembolism through participating in a national study on the real-world use of the filters.