The director of the Vascular Low Frequency Disease Consortium (VLFDC) is set to be among the headline presenters at this year’s World Federation of Vascular Societies (WFVS) Educational Session on Wednesday, June 19 (7–8 a.m. in the West Building, Level 1). Peter F. Lawrence, MD, also a former SVS president, will deliver the Rutherford Lecture, covering how the WFVS can play a role in helping the VLFDC widen its research efforts.
The WFVS session will feature seven of the member societies from across the globe that make up the federation, and be co-moderated by Palma Shaw, MD, WFVS secretary-general, and Prem Gupta, the current WFVS president.
“The WFVS continues to have consistent representation at VAM, with the European Society for Vascular Surgery [ESVS], the Society for Vascular Surgery [SVS], the Vascular Society of India [VSI], the Japanese Society for Vascular Surgery [JSVS], Vascular Society of Southern Africa [VASSA], the Latin American Association for Vascular Surgery [ALCVA] and the Australian and New Zealand Society for Vascular Surgery [ANZSVS] all taking part this year,” says Shaw.
Lawrence’s lecture will crown the series of presentations covering a number of vascular disease beds and issues facing vascular surgery on a global scale.
With the VLFDC, the WFVS intends to form ties in order to foster “more intense collaboration” going forward, Shaw tells VS@VAM ahead of the VAM 2024 event.
“The VLFDC already reaches out to different parts of the world, but the WFVS makes it more strategic, and in this way we can have representation from all over the federation membership, expanding the opportunities for collaboration and research.”
The WFVS continues to expand its own reach since recalibrating in 2021 and taking on new administrative headquarters at the SVS offices in Chicago. The Federation recently staged a session that placed a focus on leadership challenges at the Charing Cross (CX) International Symposium in London, England, while another WFVS run will take place later this year at the 2024 VEITHsymposium in New York City.
The WFVS’ own annual meeting, slated to be hosted by the serving president’s home society, the VSI, in Jaipur, India, in October, will feature two dedicated WFVS sessions. The VSI-WFVS tandem will play host to the recently established inaugural Roger M. Greenhalgh Lectureship, which will be given by Alan Lumsden, MD, the Walter W Fondren III presidential distinguished chair at Houston Methodist’s DeBakey Heart & Vascular Center in Houston, Texas, and president-elect of the Southern Association for Vascular Surgery (SAVS). Greenhalgh, who passed away in October last year was chairman and founder of the CX Symposium and a world renowned vascular surgeon.
“Overall, we are seeking to bring more consistent representation, more of an international presence to VAM,” Shaw continues. “This allows for more interaction between the member societies around the world, and now allowing for expansion into more research efforts.”
One such WFVS research outreach involves collaboration on rare diseases. The effort is geared toward establishing global guidelines. “This collaboration to develop guidelines for rare diseases is already underway, and, of course, separately, in a similar vein, we are collaborating with the VLFDC.”
Among the other highlights at the WFVS session at VAM, meanwhile, is a presentation from SVS member Vincent L. Rowe, MD, chief of vascular surgery at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in which he will pose the question: “Peripheral arterial disease on the global scale: Are we winning or losing the battle?”
Elsewhere on the program, Syed Mohammed Ali Ahmed, MBBS, from the VSI, will deliver a talk on “Management of lymphedema nostrus verrucosa.”
