Dear Colleagues,  This week's planned Town Hall on branding and valuation resources for our members has been delayed by a few weeks to provide an opportunity for the Society to come together and address the emergent issue of professionalism.  In the aftermath of public discourse regarding an article in the Journal of Vascular Surgery, now retracted, I felt it was important to lead a conversation on professionalism with our members with the help of a diverse panel of discussants. Register here

BY BETH BALES

Effective January 2021, the ACC’S NCDR will collaborate with the SVS Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) to support and steer a single vascular registry. SVS will operate the registry, creating a cobranded VQI program that will be a unique, comprehensive resource for measuring and improving the care provided to a growing population of patients with vascular diseases.

BY BETH BALES

Don’t leave reimbursement money on the table. Plan to attend—or have a staff member or two attend—the 2020 Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Coding and Reimbursement Workshop. This year’s workshop, with an optional session on evaluation and management (EM) codes, will be held Friday and Saturday, Sept. 25 and 26, at the Hyatt Rosemont in Rosemont, Illinois, near O’Hare International Airport.

The optional session will be from 8 a.m. to noon Sept. 25, with the main workshop set for 1 to 5 p.m. Sept. 25 and from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sept. 26.

BY BETH BALES AND BRYAN KAY

BY BETH BALES

Expanding the Board provides for broader representation while the three-year term for the chair provides continuity, said Michel S. Makaroun, MD, whose term as chair ended June 20. The changes as a whole “position the SVS Foundation Board for further growth,” he said.

In addition, the immediate past president of the SVS will no longer succeed to the chair position, but will serve on the Foundation board.

BY BRYAN KAY

Lumsden gave the address—entitled “TeleWhat? Beyond the office: How remote support systems will transform education, case support and care delivery”—on the second day of SVS ONLINE, on June 23, as the digital alternative to the canceled Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) moved onto Scientific Session 2 and its first Invited Session, “American Venous Forum Debates 2020: Are DVT & PE interventions unnecessary?”

BY BRYAN KAY

The Stanford University, California, vascular chief had intended it to be constructed this way. As is custom, the at-that-point SVS president-elect had been charged with devising the coveted E. Stanley Crawford Critical Issues Forum.

This year, of course, it took place during SVS ONLINE, the digital alternative to the Vascular Annual Meeting, canceled in the face of the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was part of the conference’s opening day, a pivotal session aimed at guiding the vascular specialty into the future.

BY BRYAN KAY

Joining other bodies of medical professionals, the two organizations highlighted the sacred oath taken by physicians to “save and extend the quality of life” of all people. They went on to state that as membership groups they abhorred “injustice and violence of any kind.”

Medical bodies had come under renewed pressure to take action to help address systemic racism as it exists in the medical profession and healthcare.  

BY BRYAN KAY

Delivering data demonstrating the composition of the SVS along age, gender and ethnic lines, he indicated work remained to be done to achieve a more diverse organization, telling the Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) replacement that “we ought to be able to do better.”

BY BETH BALES AND BRYAN KAY

The results were announced during the second session of the SVS Annual Business Meeting Saturday, June 20, when Dalman officially became SVS president, succeeding Kim Hodgson, MD.