The Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) takes a moment to recognize the dedication, achievements and progress made over the past year. In a letter to members, SVS Executive Director Kenneth M. Slaw, PhD, highlights the Society’s unwavering focus on quality, advocacy and education while celebrating the collective efforts that have shaped the year’s successes.
Thank you for your relentless commitment to quality and safety in the care of patients with vascular disease, as well as your commitment and dedication to vascular surgery and the SVS. Last year was another fast-paced 12-month period, filled with challenges, opportunities and milestone achievements, none of which would be possible without the leadership and efforts of more than 560 member volunteers serving on over 40 committees, task forces and writers groups, and an incredible professional staff. I am delighted to refresh your memory regarding a few highlights.
Hello America, we are vascular surgery
Under the leadership of the Executive Board and Strategic Board, led by William Shutze, MD, and the Communications and Branding Committee, and an implementation team led by Megan Marcinko, the SVS launched its national branding initiative “Highway to Health.” In just the first three months, the media airways were flooded with video, social media and media interviews, reaching 452 million media impressions, close to 1,000 media placements and what soon will be over 40 live media interviews. It has been a very successful launch with our public relations firm partner, BRG, and this is just the beginning. Phase one of the launch introduced vascular surgery to the public, including SVS’s new Your Vascular Health patient website. In 2025, the focus will shift to referring providers and the healthcare system C-suite. Please watch your social media apps for SVS Highway to Health messaging.
Back to the future on health policy and advocacy
It was another year of struggle, challenge and intensive advocacy to protect and preserve physician payment and numerous pieces of legislation protecting both physicians and patients, including Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) fee schedules, budget neutrality, inflation adjustments, pre-authorization, wellness and many more issues. The SVS is front and center at the table for key discussions and is a highly respected source of expertise on Capitol Hill. With the return of the Trump administration, it will never be more important for the voice of vascular surgery to be unified and strong and show strength through its political action committee (PAC) and face-to-face advocacy efforts. New in September 2025 will be the SVS’s first Advocacy Leadership Summit and Hill visit. We hope you will join us in September to become a trained leader in health policy and advocacy, and march up to the Hill to educate members of Congress and their staff to make our case loud and clear.
Quality and quality improvement define our core
The core of the SVS’s reputation and expertise is derived from its focus on best science and quality improvement. The SVS Patient Safety Organization Vascular Quality Initiative (PSO VQI) is second to none among medical specialty registries in moving the needs on quality. The PSO VQI achieved its landmark one-millionth entry in 2024 and has over 1,200 subscribing institutions contributing data. The 17 regional meetings are focused on moving the quality improvement bar on selected procedures and disease states. This year’s true milestone was the launch of the Na tional Smoking Cessation Initiative, making the PSO/VQI among the first data registries to mobilize around prevention and preventive factors in vascular disease.
Another milestone in 2024 was the development and acceptance by CMS of a new vascular quality measure now up for public comment. If accepted, this will be a new measure developed by vascular surgeons for vascular surgeons who qualify for the CMS MIPS Value Pathways (MVP) payment program. Many thanks to Evan Lipsitz, MD, and an incredible Quality and Performance Measures Committee and staff for a wonderful achievement.
Leadership education commonly states that leaders must not just “talk the talk” but “walk the walk.” If SVS members truly believe in quality, they need to engage in quality improvement, and a fantastic way to walk the walk is to encourage health systems to become verified as a Vascular Center of Excellence by the American College of Surgeons (ACS)-SVS Vascular Verification Program (VVP). Launched in 2023, the VVP added eight new practices in 2024. The focus in 2025 will be support for the Outpatient Standards Program. All SVS members are encouraged to practice through the program.”
Media coverage in the vascular arena became a national issue in 2023, focusing on the appropriateness of vascular care across practice settings. Due to a strong response and leadership from the SVS, building relationships and educating medical journalists and the launch of the branding/ PR initiative, the headlines and stories in 2024 have slowly shifted attention from a small number of outliers in practice to the standards, guidelines, and quality improvement initiatives that define the vast majority of vascular surgeons’ practices.
Translation to transformation in clinical practice
To address a major gap in credible data, the SVS organized a national compensation study and program for vascular surgery in 2023 to answer a long-standing query and need from SVS members and address a major gap in credible data. Having worked hard to achieve the requisite 20% of eligible SVS members to privately and confidentially input their financial data, under the leadership of Keith Calligaro, MD, and Compensation Task Force, the first aggregate report of vascular surgery compensation data was accepted for publication in the Journal of Vascular Surgery (JVS) in 2024.
It was a busy year for developing and publishing clinical practice guidelines, and in 2024, the SVS continued its popular “Translating Guidelines into Practice” webinar series, focusing on varicose veins.
In 2023–2024, hundreds of SVS members heard about the translation of the global chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) guidelines, Best Endovascular vs. Best Surgical Therapy in Patients with Critical Limb Ischemia (BEST-CLI) trial results, as well as updated varicose veins clinical practice guidelines. To further this work, the SVS was awarded a $100,000 educational grant from the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS) to further these translational efforts and support the inclusion of patient perspectives.
Coming in 2025? An update on the SVS claudication guidelines! Emphasizing its ongoing commitment to office and outpatient care in the community, the SVS Section on Outpatient and Office-Based Care (SOOVC), now named the Section on Ambulatory Vascular Care (SAVC), developed an outstanding OBL Handbook released to SVS members in 2024. The SVS recognizes the value and importance of research and promotes data collection, analysis and new research in the outpatient space. This helps with safety and cost-effectiveness and expands patients’ access to care.
Meeting member needs and challenges
Each month of the year brings new ideas, energy and opportunities, as well as new challenges and threats that make strategy and change a universal constant for the SVS. The pace of change is accelerating and has become its own unique challenge. The SVS leadership remains committed to continue evolving the Society to address new opportunities and challenges, which is a challenge in itself, given the need to prioritize finite resources. Members contribute every dollar through dues, donations or program support, an essential lifeline to help the SVS continue to embrace new opportunities. The SVS is very fortunate to have a diverse revenue portfolio, relying on member dues for only 14% of its revenue, but each of those dollars is vitally important.
The SVS membership continues to grow and diversify, with total membership now closing in on 6,400 members.
The 2022 establishment of the Young Surgeons Section (YSS) has fostered and accelerated value and engagement for Early Career members, and, in 2024, the SVS approved a new Senior Section to maintain membership, value and engagement amongst later-career members. Many thanks to Enrico Ascher, MD, for his leadership in this.
The value and strength of SVS Affiliate membership is substantial—with over 500 vascular physician assistants (PAs), nurse practitioners and nurses—and essential as the SVS sculpts the future of vascular care delivery. In 2024, the SVS convened an Advanced Practice Provider (APP) Task Force to discuss future models for integrating the engagement of all APPs working with vascular surgeons.
Some five years ago, the SVS embarked on a series of assessments and potential governance changes to increase the diversity of perspectives. In 2024, the last of these governance changes—a change to the structure of the SVS Executive Board—was ratified by the voting membership and implemented. Congratulations to new EB members Chelsea Dorsey, MD, Yazan Duwayri, MD, Katherine Gallagher, MD, Vikram Kashyap, MD, and Robert Molnar, MD, who now join the SVS officers.
If quality is the core of the SVS, education is its cornerstone
By all accounts and perspectives, the Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) 2024 in Chicago was superb and groundbreaking, thanks to Andres Schanzer, MD, who finished his term as VAM Program chair. More than 92% of VAM 2024 attendees rated the educational programming as excellent or good; international attendance doubled in size from 2023 to 2024; and a track specifically designed for the early career surgeon was piloted, leading to the highest participation from young surgeons of any VAM to date. VAM also introduced a track specifically designed for medical students/general surgery residents, specific educational programming and networking opportunities, and a Residency Fair with over 150 residency programs represented. We hope to see you all in New Orleans!
Beyond VAM, the Education Council, led by Kellie Brown, MD, has continued to develop innovative education opportunities for members.
The third Annual Complex Peripheral Vascular Interventions (CPVI) Hands-On Skills Course had another successful year, featuring 20 trainees able to attend with scholarship support.
The SVS launched its new and updated VascuLEARN learning management system (LMS), which is now the home for accessible webinars, micro-learning and short videos. This creates a one-stop online hub for educational content. Over the past three years, 1,365 vascular experts and trainees have taken advantage of these resources.
The SVS launched the sixth edition of the Vascular Education and Self-Assessment Program (VESAP6), with over 700 users burning through the questions and testing their knowledge.
Coding and reimbursement remains one of the top non-clinical content areas requested in the 2021 and 2024 education needs assessments. In addition to the live Coding Course, the SVS launched three new on-demand foundational videos and created a forum for submitting monthly questions, ensuring your questions are answered. The Coding Course will likely sell out quickly, with the potential of new lower extremity codes coming in 2025, so watch for registration in late spring.
The SVS held its fifth successful Leadership Development Program, with 96% of cohort five participants reporting they intended to incorporate changes into their practice following the course. Over the past five cohorts, the SVS has trained over 140 vascular surgeons in leadership skills. Registration for Cohort 6 will launch in April.
Finally, the SVS launched a new Wound Care Curriculum in February 2025. This collaborative effort between the SVS, the Society for Vascular Nursing (SVN), and the American Podiatric Medical Association (APMA) includes faculty members who are vascular surgeons, vascular nurses, vascular PAs and podiatrists. The curriculum consists of on-demand videos and in-person hands-on workshops held in conjunction with VAM 2025, 2026 and 2027.
Another milestone was hit in our scholarly journal publishing. Thanks to the leadership of Alan Dardik, MD, staff member Tyler Cosgrove, and our publisher Elsevier, the Journal of Vascular Surgery-Vascular Science (JVS-VS) has been indexed and will now have an impact factor, helping to establish it as the premier journal for vascular basic science research.
Our SVS Foundation, led by Joseph Mills, MD, and staff members Catherine Lampi and Sarah Murphy, is evolving, thriving,and garnering renewed attention through a “lights out” 2024 Gala at the Museum of Science and Industry at VAM, where the new James S. T. Yao Lectureship was announced.
Whether they attended our annual gala, walked for PAD awareness during the annual Vascular Health Step Challenge, shared their story during the Voices of Vascular campaign or made a charitable contribution, their support has been invaluable in advancing our mission. The Voices of Vascular campaign highlighted the accomplishments of 17 SVS members; Step Challenge donors came together to fund a new Vascular Care for the Underserved grant that will support an innovative project that addresses the unique challenges faced by underserved populations affected by PAD; SVS donors stepped up during Giving Tuesday, smashing our fundraising goal, raising more than $34k in 24 hours.
Finally, SVS member volunteers have pressed forward to sculpt the future with numerous new task forces in 2024, including in pediatric vascular care, patient engagement, innovation in vascular care, and clinical trials. The Vascular Board Certification Task Force is completing an assessment of progress made over the past 20 years, looking toward a future that strengthens the specialty.
Alignment to ‘True North’
Last year was one of significant achievements for the SVS, its Foundation, PSO and PAC. We hope you are as proud of these accomplishments as we as your staff are.
As we look down the lens of 2025 and the year ahead, the SVS remains steadfast in its commitment to championing quality and safety in patient care, the best science in the field, and advancing vascular surgery through meaningful collaboration, innovation, and letting the world know how special you are as vascular surgeons. I extend my sincere gratitude to each member for their invaluable contributions.
