Abstract
The officers of the Society for Vascular Medicine (SVM) Executive Committee are pleased to share some recent updates with the membership. Our Society is involved in numerous projects and collaborations with other cardiovascular organizations. Apart from these endeavors, our educational conference offerings have also increased over the last few years. This year the Society held its 5th annual Fellows’ Course in conjunction with a new track tailored to advanced practice providers (APP). Together, the courses hosted over 70 participants in Denver, CO. Executing such a combined course required collaboration among nearly 30 faculty members and multiple administrative staff, led by Julie Webb, our Executive Director. The courses boasted state-of-the-art lectures delivered by SVM’ers from all over the country, hands-on workshops, and innovative sessions. The course was supported by unrestricted educational grants from several industry partners to whom we owe thanks. Finally, no summary of the SVM Fellows’ and APP Course can be complete without mentioning Drs Ido Weinberg and Mitchell D Weinberg, who worked tirelessly to design the course, recruit excellent faculty, raise significant funds, and deliver outstanding content, all for the benefit of the attendees and the Society.
Please register for the SVM 2020 Annual Scientific Sessions to be held June 11th to 13th at the Grand Hyatt in Denver, CO. This year’s program is being designed by our President-Elect, Dr Herb Aronow, and more than two dozen talented thought leaders in vascular medicine, cardiology, radiology, surgery, and podiatry. Using our new interactive meeting app, you’ll find there’s something there for everyone, including sessions on the vascular lab, the year-in-review, cerebrovascular disease, vasculitis, lower extremity PAD, lymphatic disease, aortic/mesenteric/renal disease, and venous thromboembolism. Registration opened in January, so be sure to sign up if you haven’t already at
Under the leadership of our Secretary, Dr Elizabeth Ratchford, the Membership Committee serves to develop, plan, and implement strategies and programs to encourage membership in the Society and to advise the Board on member needs and benefits. To that end, we welcome and value your input, and we have several exciting initiatives underway. The recent ‘Doctorate to Fellow’ initiative led to a significant number of members being promoted to Fellow (‘FSVM’). We will be honoring all this year’s new FSVM members at a Recognition Ceremony on the afternoon of June 11, 2020 at the Annual Scientific Sessions in Denver. One of our main goals this year is to increase our international membership, through local partnerships and connections with other vascular organizations. On an individual level, we will also promote our international connections with the International Cases Session at the Annual Meeting.
Mentorship is an indispensable and cherished feature of being a member of SVM. In addition to countless informal mentor/mentee connections, we have started a new formal mentoring program under the leadership of Drs Elizabeth Ratchford and Aaron Aday. If you would like to participate, please sign up on the SVM website. The Membership Committee and the NextGen Committee will also be co-sponsoring a ‘speed mentoring’ event on the first evening to kick off the Annual Meeting.
The Society is pleased to announce that it has contracted the services of an expert consultant to assist leadership and volunteers with efforts to pursue subspecialty recognition of vascular medicine by the American Board of Medical Specialties as well as accreditation for our training programs. Stay tuned for more updates on this effort in the months to come. The Society is also pleased to report that an updated textbook of review questions to prepare for the ABVM general and endovascular board examinations is being developed in collaboration with Springer and under the leadership of Dr Aditya Sharma and a team of SVM volunteers. On the governance front, Dr Heather Gornik chairs the Past Presidents’ Council, which is working to find new ways to engage our founders and past leaders in the present and future of our Society. Finally, with the help of the Bylaws, Policies, and Procedures Committee, led by past-chair Dr Peter Angelopoulos, the Board approved the first update to the SVM Policies and Procedures Manual in many years. This update (along with a prior Bylaws update in 2018) has allowed us to modernize and update our Society’s policies and inner workings. We are also in the process of updating the SVM website to reflect updates to our membership categories as well as streamlining the membership application process. We are looking forward to growth in APP members, who are now able to advance to FSVM status after 2 years in good standing.
We have had significant personnel turnover in the last few months at our Kellen headquarters. The new team members – Michael Hagedorn, Yvonne Janvrin, and Patrick Dougherty – have helped us make this transition with relative ease.
We are happy to inform you that our Society is strong and financially stable. However, there is a lot more to do. We appreciate your service, and we value your input. Please reach out to us with your thoughts and ideas, and together we will continue to expand our footprint in the vascular world.
