Less vain and more vein: Evaluating the perceptions of venous disease amongst the vascular...

Our biases permeate the fabric of our very being, as they weave their way into our training and practice. It is clear that complex...
Happiness

Can you count the ‘monkeys’ on your back?

Periodically, when under pressure at work, and sometimes at home, I would think about what I could do to free up more time for...

From the editor: Sex, lies, and carotid stents

First, a disclaimer. This commentary is woefully short of sex-related content. Not even the wholesome gender-based outcomes stuff. So, if that key term brought...

Expiation, Karl Wallenda, Oppenheimer and us

On March 22, 1978, Karl Wallenda went up on a high wire in Puerto Rico strung between two high-rise buildings. There was no safety...

The price of a cup of coffee

In the wake of the coverage of inappropriate vascular interventions in the mainstream press, guest editorialist Adam Tanious, MD, tackles the thorny issue of...

The Golden Larva syndrome: Is it real?

Failure is part of the process that leads to success. Occasional failures may sting but we must recognize the adage that failure is a...

BEST-CLI vs. BASIL-2: Different questions yield different answers

Medical editor Malachi Sheahan III, MD, takes a look at seemingly conflicting results from the landmark BEST-CLI and BASIL-2 trials, and asks what they...

We can honor the past without living in it

Malachi Sheahan III, MD, peels back the layers on why a decision by the Southern Association for Vascular Surgery (SAVS) to replace its signature...

Intentional mentorship and pushing beyond representation

Chicago medical student Maria Paz, BS, discusses intentional mentorship—and why she believes it matters.  When I started medical school, I never imagined that the most...

ABCs for the treatment of lower-extremity acute DVTs

Ashish Gupta, MD, outlines his ABCs for confronting and treating patients with acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT) of the lower extremity, and how he...
vascular surgery

Likes, dislikes and reposts: The new age of the vascular surgery influencer

The brave new world of social media, with its TikToks and Kar­dashians, has now invaded our once-sane specialty. No, this is not a veiled...

Has the risk in the value-based payment model been sold as another ‘shiny new...

Value-based payments (VBP), or “volume to value,” was the new buzz word over a decade ago, promising yet another chimera in ways to reimburse...

Envision, private equity and patient care: Substituted values 2.0

He was only 41, already burdened with multiple health problems. Diabetes, hypertension and renal failure had put him on dialysis, caused the amputation of...

Vascular surgeons: The ‘oncologists’ of the surgical arena

Like any good presentation I feel obligated to start with my disclosures: 1) I am married to a woman who decided to pursue a...

An open letter to the National Rifle Association

Hello, I think it is time we talked about guns. I know you don’t like to discuss these things after a school shooting, so I...

No time like the present: The moral imperative for advocacy in vascular surgery

“I’m so sorry but we have to cancel your surgery”—10 words any warm-blooded surgeon dreads uttering. This time around, it was not for the...

Tying healthcare waste and spending to productivity incentives

A 74-year-old woman was recently hospitalized for a pulmonary embolus from acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT) of the mildly edematous left lower leg. She...

Cognitive dissonance, unhappy physicians and burnout

Emotional intelligence has been widely accepted as an important element of leadership. The seminal work of Daniel Goldman informs us that the education of...

A modest proposal: Let’s eat the trauma surgeons

Well folks, after more than two years of the pandemic, racial injustice, and medical misinformation, I have decided it is time to return to...

War in Ukraine: A tale of unspeakable horror, unprecedented unity and unquenchable thirst for...

This editorial was written in the days leading up to April 2. At about 4 a.m. (Kyiv time) on Feb. 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin...

Our past is prologue: We are losing the battle to train more Black doctors

My mother was a child of the 1960s. Despite not having a college degree, she was determined to teach my sister and me that...

Silence is golden—but does self-imposed silence lead to burnout?

Burnout is associated with silence in various contexts. It is called the silent crisis, the silent epidemic, or the silent killer. What is not...

Conveying vascular surgery’s essential ‘coolness’

Let’s start with a question: how do we communicate coolness? No, I am not referring to a cool or cold foot in the emergency...

Our forever plague

The following is a combined and revised version of the November and December 2021 editorials on fake news and science denial published in Vascular...

Our broken system: Medical liability in vascular practice

My last editorial, “How to succeed in vascular surgery: A guide for the aspiring outlier,” was more controversial than I expected. I naively believed...

It is time to end the interview

INTERVIEWER: “Good morning, nice to meet you. Are you going to get pregnant?” While this may seem like a shocking way to begin a...

The choice between autonomy, true partnership—or the slow drift to ‘thralldom‘

Anthony Valdés, MBA, the president of Tampa, Florida-based Collaborative Health Systems, declares that what physicians want is to “deliver great clinical outcomes, get paid...

Overcoming prejudice and uniting vascular surgery

The United States has been living through some charged times recently. Our profession is not immune to these conflagrations. In recent times, minority members...

An open letter to Epic Systems

Dear Epic, I am not writing to you today as a customer, but rather on behalf of your users. More specifically, I am representative...

When there are none: Why manels are out

On June 12, 2019, the director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, MD, made a public commitment to decline to take part...

Ramped-up productivity incentives and a deadly down slope

The healthcare system always conducts a “root cause” analysis when a medical error occurs. It looks for a systemic problem to address in order to...

How to succeed in vascular surgery: A guide for the aspiring outlier

Disclaimer: The views expressed here do not reflect those of Mayo Clinic, the Society for Vascular Surgery, Vascular Specialist, or even the author, for...

Leadership and culture: Nurturing our immune system

Defining culture is amorphous, and mostly subjective. Being hard to define, it falls behind other measures of leadership—and team success or failure—like strategy or...

A healing touch

Since March 2020, my life has literally spiraled out of control both personally and professionally. The COVID-19 pandemic shattered my life, and I am...

Present imperfect

On the morning of Nov. 9, I received a phone call from my sister. My father had been found unresponsive in his Manhattan apartment...

Give people a fair chance and watch the results

Ten years ago when we wrote a paper on diversity that was published in the Journal of Vascular Surgery (JVS), it barely caused a...

Science at twilight: Reasserting our democratic responsibility

Thomas Jefferson sat alone in a Philadelphia boarding house. He was nervous; much was riding on the words he would now write. The sovereignty...

Look within yourself during turbulent times

There are many strategies people have for surviving turbulent times. At times like these, I am often asked for advice by younger vascular surgeons,...

Sheahan: On professionals and professionalism

On March 19, 2019, I sat in the audience of the scientific sessions at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery...

Time, money and marginal utility

Like most older surgeons, my residency and trauma fellowship years at Grady Hospital— part of Emory University School of Medicine—remain a blur. With frequent,...

Letter from NYC: Lessons learned ahead of possible future waves of COVID-19

On March 1, I drove down the Connecticut Turnpike in a rental car with my three sons. We had just left a somber family...

Of moral distress, coronavirus and implications for burnout

Moral distress has been described as “as a phenomenon in which one knows the right action to take but is constrained from taking it.”1...

COVID-19 special: How to be a doctor at the end of the world

Vascular Specialist medical editor Malachi Sheahan III, MD, is no stranger to national and international emergencies—from New York City during both the 1990s AIDS...

Faith and flaw: The replication crisis is here

In 2011, a new research study proved the existence of precognition, also known as Extra-Sensory Perception (ESP). The manuscript was published in the Journal...

Which one are you: Giver, sharer, taker or matcher?

Throughout our careers—indeed even in our personal lives—we struggle to achieve a proper balance between being a giver, sharer, taker or matcher. Adam Grant, a...

Am I my brother’s keeper? A skeptic’s call for peer support in vascular surgery

In the classic 1991 movie, “New Jack City,” drug dealer Nino Brown rhetorically asks his gang (the Cash Money Brothers), “Am I my brother’s...

Who won the Bouffant War? Science, snark, and sartorial folly in the debate over...

A few years ago, hospitals around the country began to receive citations for improper operative attire. Ears exposed, arms exposed, nape of neck exposed,...

The paclitaxel paradox

As medical editor of Vascular Specialist, it has always been my hope to use our excellent reporters and rapid production schedule to keep readers...

Death of a sales pitch

In 2000, the Institute of Medicine published “To Err Is Human,” a landmark study that warned that as many as 98,000 people die annually...

An open letter to our hospital consultants

Dear hospital consultants: Just thought I would write and give you a quick update on our situation, not that you asked. As you recall,...

I want you to do my job

It is never easy to replace a legend. The Vascular Specialist that Russell Samson has left behind does not require saving. There are, however,...

Endofill and the ‘last editorial’

This marks my last editorial as medical editor of Vascular Specialist. It has been more than a privilege to have been offered this position....

Opioids and us: Designed to fail

AIDS, the Vietnam War, whatever your preferred scale for measuring horrific events, the numbers from the opioid crisis are as grave or worse. And,...

I am not your burnout expert

  Look, I am not a burnout expert. And neither are you (presumably). None of us know much, but that won’t stop the regulations from...

A fantasy

The day had gone very well. The vascular surgeon woke early excited for a morning in the OR and then an afternoon in the...

The men and women of vascular surgery

Recent news events have detailed the many humiliations and abuses, both verbal and physical, that women, and some men, have to endure in the...

It’s time for us to talk about guns

Studies have shown that most of you already have deep-seated beliefs regarding guns. Some of you would frame the issue as Gun Rights, others...

Gods and monsters

For the first time in history, four generations of physicians work side by side in the U.S. health care system. An expanding population, longer...

Unskilled and unaware

In 1999, two psychologists, David Dunning and his student Justin Kruger, published a paper that demonstrated people who are really bad at something tend...

Here There Be Dragons …

For the public, navigating the complex world of vascular care must seem like being adrift on the high seas, with brigands and pirates galore....

Endo hubris

I began to write this opinion piece on the red-eye flying back from the outstanding Vascular Annual Meeting, recently held in San Diego. I...

SVS (Specialty of Vascular Surgery): Why, How, and When

The November 2016 issue of Annals of Vascular Surgery was devoted entirely to the history of the American Board of Vascular Surgery (ABVS) and...

Are we OK?

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about you and me. No, not being creepy. I meant all of us, vascular surgeons. Something might be...

A welcome addition

On behalf of the SVS Publications Committee I am delighted to announce the appointment of Malachi Sheahan, III, M.D., as Associate Medical Editor of...