Abstract
New Orleans, Louisiana
June 16, 2017, 9:10 a.m.
Good morning and welcome again to the annual meeting of the Society for Vascular Medicine (SVM). I am truly honored to be here once again as your President. As I mentioned last year, I am not one of the original members, but I have now been a member of the Society since 1990, or almost 27 years. In fact, my first meeting was in New Orleans in 1990, and I spoke on the antiphospholipid syndrome.
I want to thank Heather Gornik and the Scientific Sessions Program Committee for organizing another great event. This has already been a terrific meeting, and looking ahead at the schedule, the planned speakers and activities will even top the meeting she and her committee arranged last year. Everything you wanted to know about vascular medicine is all here for your taking.
I also want to thank all of the Society members who again have volunteered their time and talents to work on committees, to present at our annual meeting, to lecture at the Board Review Course and the Fellows’ Course later this year, and for the assistance provided to raise funds for our annual meeting. Special thanks to committee chairs for all their efforts as well. Thank you.
I would like to thank the Kellen staff, including Greg Schultz (Kellen Executive Vice President), Leslie Monahan (SVM executive director), Annie Cox (SVM administrative director), Patricia Sullivan (SVM communications manager), Kim Santos (SVM meeting manager), and Tonya Cabrera (SVM meetings administrator), for their terrific job in arranging and helping to run the meeting. We could not do this without their experience and expertise.
I want to take a few minutes to recognize two members we have lost this past year. Dr Rajiv Thakkar was a faculty member and vascular medicine specialist at the Johns Hopkins University. Dr Alan T Hirsch was a past president, founding member of our Society, and vascular medicine specialist from the University of Minnesota. Both had a sincere passion for vascular medicine and were proud to be members of our Society. Their presence will be greatly missed.
We have established a memorial fund in Alan’s name. Monies will be used to fund the Alan T. Hirsch travel award, which is given each year to encourage younger physicians to attend our meeting and learn more about SVM. If you would like to donate to this cause, you can go on the SVM website and it will direct you.
This will be my second and last Presidential address. It is amazing how fast these past two years have gone. The journey has taken me from Baltimore for the Medicare Evidence Development Coverage Advisory Committee (MEDCAC) meeting and to Minneapolis to honor Dr Alan Hirsch.
I cannot tell you how much I have enjoyed these 2 years and the prior 27 years as a member of SVM. I was in awe (and intimidated) during my earlier years because of the tremendous talents this Society has had, and I continue to be amazed by what we have to offer looking ahead. It is a great society for many reasons. We are small but effective and talented. Let me share some of
Accomplishments of the Society, 2015–2017
During the first few months of my presidency in 2015, I was honored to represent our Society at the MEDCAC meeting to examine the scientific evidence of interventions that aim to improve the health outcomes in the Medicare population focusing on peripheral artery disease (PAD).
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Also attending with me were SVM members Jim Froehlich, Josh Beckman, Michael Jaff, Mehdi Shishehbor, Kenny Rosenfield, Herb Aronow, and Robert Lookstein. This was a multispecialty group effort representing a number of different societies, including the American College of Radiology (ACR), Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI), Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), Vascular and Interventional Advances (VIVA), and SVM. We met as a group before the meeting and developed a plan that demonstrated our consistent support for coverage of exercise therapy for PAD patients. I strongly believe as a result of our effort that
This past year (2016), Suman Wasan, Josh Beckman, Greg Piazza, and Terri Carmen – all members of SVM – represented SVM and other societies at the MEDCAC conference in Baltimore to examine scientific evidence on the benefits and risks of treatments for lower extremity chronic venous disease that aim to improve the health outcomes in the Medicare population and to identify evidence gaps that exist related to lower extremity chronic venous disease. 2
These are just two examples of our Society’s importance and what we can collectively contribute and accomplish when we work with other societies with similar and shared goals for patient care.
In 2015, we were approached by VIVA about our interest in resuming control of the Vascular and Endovascular Comprehensive Board Review Course for those who will take the American Board of Vascular Medicine examination. Some of you may not recall that this course was initially designed and run by our Society for a number of years.
This request came in late fall, and our SVM meeting program for 2016 had already been finalized. There were literally ‘no rooms in the inn’ so to speak for the course. At the last minute, along with the help of fellow members Aditya Sharma, Steve Dean, Bruce Gray, myself, and many others who presented at our annual meeting, we were able to put together an online board review course. It was an outstanding and successful education effort and even profitable for the Society. Again, this is a testament to many of you who were gracious in sharing your knowledge and your time to put on this course. I predict this online approach may be the way of the future for this course, although we are hosting the Board Review Course live this year, beginning later today.
Late last year, amidst rumors that there might be another society competing for the Vascular and Endovascular Board Review Course audience, we strategically joined with SCAI to help organize and promote this year’s and future board review courses. As you will see from the board review agenda, SCAI is promoting the course with us and their members were active in planning this meeting. We see this as a win-win opportunity.
This past year, Jim Froehlich and I represented SVM at the Vascular Independent Research and Education European Organization (VAS) annual meeting. We spoke via Skype on PAD, and the year before I gave a lecture on pulmonary embolism and pregnancy. Naomi Hamburg is already in discussions for a joint session at the 14th European Angiology Days with SVM, again via Skype.
As a result, the VAS organization has suggested we create a partnership to further promote vascular medicine in Europe, the United States, and around the world. Potential goals might include drafting position statements and working on common educational ideas. They have proposed we name two representatives from our Society and vice versa in hopes of strengthening our two organizations and sending these individuals to each other’s meeting. This is another example of the global interest in our Society.
We continue to be invited to represent SVM at many other scientific meetings (and have had other societies join forces at our annual meetings). This year we have representatives from the American College of Phlebology (ACP) and the American Venous Forum (AVF). Many of you have also represented SVM at the ACP and AVF meetings as well as others, including VAS, SVS, AHA, ACC, SCAI, ISET, Venous Symposium, C3, SVU, and probably a few more that I am missing. This representation reflects our unique understanding, knowledge, and reputation in the diagnosis and management of vascular diseases.
What should a President’s address accomplish?
Perhaps whatever I have to say today will not stay with you long. But I want to leave you with some thoughts as I end my ‘active presidency’. I will move on to become the past-President for 2 years, and, knowing Heather Gornik, she will not let me simply fade away.
Our Society still has many more things we can accomplish. We heard this yesterday from our past president Mark Creager during his Founders Lecture. Mark stressed five points: enhance training, provide professional education, improve healthcare delivery, advance science, and become an advocate for health services.
Last year my speech revolved around our Society’s original missions, and Mark mentioned those yesterday as well. As a reminder, those missions are to:
I would like to focus on the
Emile Mohler, recently awarded the ‘Master of the Society for Vascular Medicine’, was quoted in the SVM Communication Pages of our journal Vascular Medicine, saying that his philosophy regarding care of patients with vascular disease is simple: ‘Put the patient first’.
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Emile went on to say that he had strived to improve the care of patients with vascular disease and stressed the importance of a team effort and leadership to provide the best possible care for our patients. Clearly he has promoted and advanced the field at his institution to
I believe this is what our Society is all about: a team effort and leadership. We
We have also continued with our
We continue to do well on our
Also as part of the third mission, last year we announced a collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceuticals to develop an
With all the positive contributions that we have made and continue to focus on, we need to do better on
What makes vascular medicine special?
Be proud of your society
Use your letters (FSVM or MSVM) after your name. Remember, you are all elite members of a great society now approaching its 30th year. In my presidential address last year, I stated we are the ‘go-to docs’ for difficult cases. From massive pulmonary embolism to difficult carotid or PAD cases, unusual diseases like pernio, erythromelalgia or entrapment syndromes, aneurysmal disease, fibromuscular dysplasia, the swollen leg with chronic venous disease, lymphedema and lipedema, and so on, we see all of the difficult cases. I cannot tell you how many times I have had a new staff member join our hospital system – whether it be in hematology, vascular surgery, cardiology, internal medicine or surgery – approach me and say, ‘We did not have vascular medicine at our institution. What a treasure your section is.’ The same goes at lectures I give around the country. When I state I am a vascular medicine specialist, many have not heard of us, and I might be asked how we set up such a program. That is why we need to wear and declare our letters proudly.
How can you help?
Get involved
As I stated earlier, I was intimidated when I joined the Board of Trustees many years ago. There were many names that I had seen in the literature throughout my early career. I remember hoping to say something intelligent amongst the giants and founders of SVM.
Much has changed since I started my medical career, approaching 40 years ago. I remember when the latest technology we had were pagers. Even with that cutting-edge technology, we still had to directly communicate with other physicians either by telephone, at bedside, or drop by their office to speak face-to-face. I went to meetings where the slides were in black and white and the development system was known as a scotophile. We did not have amazing images to show everyone or videos of procedures on how to open and/or stent a blood vessel. We had fewer medications and treatment options for our patients. We had to go to the library to look up the latest information using a system called Index Medicus, and that could take hours to find everything you needed.
Both the practice of medicine and the technology available has advanced greatly over my career.
Now we have e-mail and the Internet, with instant access to the latest information with OVID or PubMed. We have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and Skype. We can do consultations online (for example, a PERT call) and can lecture from our office to an audience anywhere around the globe (such as we did for VAS). Our Society even has worldwide membership, and Tess Abola, one of our board members from the Philippines, can join our monthly meetings live.
But many of the old ways are still valuable. That is what makes our meeting so special. We can meet face-to-face and discuss ideas, make new friends, and develop relationships. So, get involved. Help the Society to continue to grow, diversify, and flourish. As I have said before, we are small but we are effective, mighty, and influential. We truly are an elite group.
In closing, I want to thank my fellow staff members at the Cleveland Clinic for their support and their help with our Society.
Lastly, I want to thank my wife, Kathy, for putting up with me these past 4 years. When I was asked to be the President, I told her that it was a 2-year commitment. I forgot to mention the 2 years as the President-Elect, followed by 2 years as the actual President, and 2 more as the Past-President. Thank you for your love and support.
If ones’ medical career is like a football game, my career as a vascular medicine physician is now in the fourth quarter. There can be no better way to culminate my career than as President of our great Society. Thank you.