Outgoing Western Vascular Society (WVS) President Ahmed Abou-Zamzam Jr., MD, provided a possible prescription for value in vascular surgery that goes beyond the monetary value assigned to the profession.
Using the memoir of Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, to illustrate the point, Abou-Zamzam told attendees of the 2025 WVS annual meeting (Sept. 14–17) in Ojai, California, how the author “reflects how running has shaped his writing and his writing has impacted his running.”
Just as vascular surgery takes hard work, dedication and persistence, Abou-Zamzam, the chair of vascular surgery at Loma Linda University in Loma Linda, California, said he considers how he could say the same about his own passion for running and how it overlaps with his working life.
“I hear people say, we are not valued [as vascular surgeons],” he said. “I think it is because we are using the word differently … we may be misunderstanding each other.” While efforts to demonstrate the monetary value vascular surgeons bring to the healthcare system are well chronicled, Abou-Zamzam added, “there is so much more to value when I talk about value.”
For him, that can mean there are certain joys for which there may not be a monetary value. “My favorite part is walking out of the OR [operating room] and going to talk to the patient’s family,” he said. “I mean, I don’t know anybody who can do anything better than when you see the relief on their faces. I think we have to look at these things and everyone find that satisfaction. And that’s what I seem to be thinking about when I think about value.”
