The Society for Vascular Surgery Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Dr. Wesley Moore at this year’s Vascular Annual Meeting.
The SVS Lifetime Achievement Award is the highest honor that the Society bestows on one of its members. Selection for this honor recognizes an individual’s outstanding and sustained contributions both to the profession and to SVS, as well as exemplary professional practice and leadership.
The recipient of this year’s SVS Lifetime Achievement Award exemplifies the qualities for which the award is intended to recognize. Dr. Moore has been a leading figure and a national and international force in vascular surgery for nearly five decades and still maintains that preeminence today.
Photo credit: Catherine Harrell.
This year’s SVS Lifetime Achievement Award recipient is Wesley Moore, M.D., (right).
Dr. Moore has contributed enormously to our specialty and to the SVS, serving as Secretary in the early 1980’s and then as the youngest vascular surgeon elected to President in 1986. Since his term as President, he has continuously contributed important articles to the SVS annual meeting and chaired numerous key SVS committees, especially those having to do with establishing standards of practice and training for vascular surgeons. Because of his contributions to our specialty and the SVS, he is among the most recognized and respected vascular surgeons in our country and the world. His reputation has been further enhanced by his selection as Chair for key committees and duties in the American Heart Association and the American College of Surgeons. He has also served as President of several regional vascular societies and represented our specialty and the SVS well by his actions and leadership.
In his position as Chief of Vascular Surgery at the University of AZ and UCLA for over three decades, Dr. Moore served as a mentor and role model for countless vascular surgeons. In addition he founded and led the UCLA’s annual vascular fellows and residents course for over 25 years. Because of this course and his numerous other awards for excellence in teaching, he is one of the most preeminent and respected educators in the field.
He is a leader in clinical vascular surgery research and innovations. He has authored approximately 300 important peer reviewed articles, over 200 book chapters and served as chief editor or author of more than 15 widely read vascular textbooks or monographs. Dr. Moore has been at the leading edge of research in many areas of vascular surgery throughout his long career. First in the development of prosthetic vascular grafts and the treatment of graft infections; next in improving lower extremity bypass procedures; and throughout his career he has been a leader in studying and improving carotid surgery.
In the last 15 years, he has been at the forefront of the endovascular revolution, and was one of the first senior vascular surgeons to embrace and promote EVAR and other endovascular treatments. He was the first to place an FDA-approved endograft in a patient with AAA in 1993. He has been the principal investigator of a number of EVAR device trials and many of his articles in this field have achieved landmark status. And finally, he was one of the key vascular surgeons to organize and complete the recently published CREST study comparing carotid endarterectomy with stenting.
In addition to all of these achievements throughout his career and the countless prestigious awards he has received for them, Dr. Moore has been an outstanding clinical vascular surgeon. He is still the “go to expert” for difficult aortic and carotid cases in his institution and his area.
