CURTAIN RAISER OPENING CEREMONY HERALDS ‘POWER’ OF VAM ATTENDANCE

SVS PRESIDENT MICHAEL DALSING, MD, OFFICIALLY opened the 2023 Vascular Annual Meeting (VAM) yesterday morning, telling attendees at the early morning Opening Ceremony: “For 76 years, vascular surgeons have been developing and integrating ideas, tenacity and collaboration across this meeting— and unless this is your very first VAM, you understand first-hand the power that comes with attending VAM.”

For those for whom VAM 2023 is their first meeting, the current moment is a wonderful one within the specialty, Dalsing said—“full of innovation, friendship and scholarship.” He hailed a bustling program of new science and special sessions, including the Frank J. Veith Distinguished Lecture, which takes place today (9:30–10 a.m.) in Potomac A/B.

Dalsing was followed at the podium by Andres Schanzer, MD, SVS Program Committee chair, who highlighted the “radical departure” from the meeting’s historical approach to postgraduate education content. “We have moved away from invited sessions to a submission of education proposals,” he said. The move, led by William Robinson, MD, Postgraduate Education Committee chair, is no longer “friends inviting friends to give talks with many of the same faces on the podium all week long,” but “entirely created by you and your peers.”

LONG-TERM OVERALL SURVIVAL (OS) and amputation-free survival (AFS) are outcomes that rebound in claudicants who quit smoking prior to elective surgery—and they mirror those of never smokers. But patients who don’t kick the habit have significantly worse outcomes, lighting up the question: should stubbing out for good be bypass. The findings were published simultaneously in the Journal of Vascular Surgery (JVS).

“a requirement” before intervention?

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Day Two Highlights

DAY ONE OF VAM 2023 is in the books and it’s on to a jam-packed day two of educational and scientific sessions, presentations for specific member groups and plenty of chances to see friends and colleagues.

Some Thursday highlights: The International Chapter Forum (6:30–8 a.m.), with presentations from eight international chapters on a range of topics, including if continuing medical education needs for Millennials differ.

In the inaugural Frank J. Veith Distinguished Lecture, at 9:30 a.m., Matthew Menard, MD, and Alik Farber, MD, will discuss, “BEST-CLI: The Journey to Evidence and Beyond.” Immediately following that attendees will learn the recipient of the prestigious SVS Lifetime Achievement Award

By Urmila Kerslake and Will Date

That was the message from Rohini J. Patel, MD, who presented data during yesterday’s William J. von Liebig Forum on long-term outcomes in the smoking claudicant after elective lower extremity

Patel, a general surgery resident physician at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), San Diego, noted that patients and vascular specialists must grasp that structured smoking cessation should be a more prominent part of vascular office visits before and after lower extremity bypass and can “even be considered a requirement prior to elective procedures in claudicants,” a group that

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In the afternoon, three special membership sections feature, along with the “How I Do It” video session, and educational sessions covering a range of topics. These include “My Worst Cases,” modern management and device evolution for CLTI patients, the role of vascular surgeons in oncology cases, and “Optimizing the Clinical Environment: Learning and Practicing with Intent and Inclusion.”

Then comes the Opening Reception in the Exhibit Hall from 5–6:30 p.m., in conjunction with the International Poster Competition and the Interactive Poster Session, followed by the Celebration of Diversity Reception from 6:30–7:30 p.m.

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