The E. Stanley Crawford Critical Issues Forum at VAM 2026 focused on innovations in vascular surgery and served as the setting for the launch of the Enrico Ascher Vascular Innovation Institute, a new entity under the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) Foundation’s research and innovation portfolio.
The institute, named after Enrico Ascher, MD, clinical professor in the department of surgery at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, received generous support from the Ascher family and will be a platform for advancing innovative ideas, technologies and leadership in vascular surgery.
During the Crawford session, Ascher called on vascular surgeons to embrace innovation as a defining priority for the specialty, arguing that the field must take an active role in shaping emerging technologies.
“The best way to predict the future of medicine is to create it,” said Ascher, borrowing a phrase he attributed to management thinker Peter Drucker and computer scientist Alan Kay.
Ascher traced the history of innovation from its origins as a concept often associated with disruption and skepticism to its modern role as a driver of scientific and technological progress. He highlighted landmark advances that transformed vascular surgery, including vascular grafts, angiography and endovascular aneurysm repair.
“In this century, we have never had a greater opportunity to make meaningful scientific advances in vascular surgery,” said Ascher. “This is the year to start thinking about not just reviewing data but actually bringing something new that can analyze the data. Something new in the way we take care of patients, the way we use machinery and the way we even think about techniques.”
He pointed to artificial intelligence, robotics and augmented reality as technologies already reshaping other specialties, particularly neurosurgery, and said vascular surgeons need to become more aggressive in exploring their potential applications.
Ascher also reflected on past ideas that helped define vascular surgery, including workforce planning, outcomes assessment, reporting standards, the Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) and clinical practice guidelines. He suggested innovation should become the specialty’s next defining theme.
“What I submit to you for this decade is maybe innovation should be the buzzword for vascular surgery,” said Ascher. “By doing so, we can play a meaningful role in shaping these disruptive technologies.”
