Highlights of the SVM 25th Anniversary and Scientific Sessions

Abstract

The SVM 25th Anniversary and Scientific Sessions were held in La Jolla, California, 12–14 June 2014 and were a great success.

With 285 attendees, 14 academic sessions, including Vascular Jeopardy, award presentations, a keynote address by Jonathan Woodson, MD, a vascular surgeon and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs in the US Department of Defense, concurrent sessions on Thursday and Saturday, and very successful SVM in the Vascular Lab and Wound Care and Phlebology workshops on Saturday 14 June. In addition, two industry forums were presented, including a presentation on inferior vena cava filters and another on novel oral anticoagulants.

John Gocke, one of the original members of SVM, started the meeting off with a talk entitled ‘Twenty-five years of vascular medicine’, which was a brief history of the society and stressed our importance in the world of vascular disease.

The keynote address by Jonathan Woodson included a brief history of the military’s influence on health care as it pertains to traumatic injuries and how the lessons learned in treating service men and women benefit the civilian population.

James B Froehlich gave the traditional presidential address on Thursday morning, then, as part of our 25th Anniversary Celebration, we heard from eight former SVM presidents. On Thursday 12 June, the early years of SVM were presented by Mark A Creager (1993–1995), William R Hiatt (1995–1997), Alan T Hirsch (1997–1999), and Jeffrey W Olin (1999–2001). The later years were presented on Friday 13 June by John P Cooke (2005–2007), J Michael Bacharach (2007–2009), Thom W Rooke (2009–2011), and Joshua A Beckman (2011–2013). We hope to publish a summary of our Society history through the perspective of our presidents later this year in Vascular Medicine.

This year, for the first time, we had concurrent sessions, on the endovascular treatment of intermittent claudication, obesity and vascular disease, clinic conundrums in vascular medicine, and non-atherosclerotic artery diseases. Concurrent sessions were also held on Saturday and were very well attended. They included topics on the vascular laboratory, wound care, and phlebology.

Cases Over Cocktails and Vascular Jeopardy remained very popular sessions and led to very lively discussions.

Patricia A Poe, president of the Society of Vascular Ultrasound (SVU), addressed the meeting on Saturday 14 June and spoke of interest for future SVU and SVM collaborations in many areas.

Networking opportunities included breakfast and coffee breaks in the exhibit hall, as well as the Women in Vascular Medicine dessert reception. We all enjoyed the 25th Anniversary Celebration held in the beautiful Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines Parterre Gardens.

The poster hall featured 40 posters plus the five finalists for the Jay D Coffman Young Investigator Award competition.

Friday included award presentations for the Jay D Coffman Young Investigator Award and the Jess R Young Outstanding Educator Award.

We thank the entire Scientific Sessions Program Committee for its hard work this year in planning an outstanding meeting. Please let us know if you have any suggestions for session topics for 2015.