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.
People who live with diabetes know they have a lot of health management to do – monitor their blood sugar, stay alert for eye problems and monitor for foot infections.
But some may not understand that many of the most common complications of diabetes stem from one primary issue: the havoc that high blood sugar, also called hyperglycemia, causes for the body's blood vessels. Because blood brings oxygen to every living cell in the body, when blood vessels aren't working properly, the body suffers.