In this issue: 3 I nterview From Brazil to Baylor: Oderich lands at powerhouse
10 B EST-CLI Landmark trial validated in singleinstitution retrospective review
8P residential addresses SCVS and AVF presidents 13 VAM 2025 each offer vascular surgery Vascular Annual Meeting leadership perspectives during set to feature dedicated recent annual meetings session on AI
APRIL 2025 Volume 21 Number 3
THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF THE
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VSB
The question of Vascular Surgery Board independence Federated or free-standing? ?gnidnats-eerf ro detaredeF A survey recently went out to SVS members asking them to contribute their voice to an opinion poll over whether the VSB should remain a constituent board of the ABS— or become free-standing. By Bryan Kay
I
t’s a question that has come into and out of view in the vascular surgery community for the better part of three decades: should vascular surgery break away and form a fully independent board to certify vascular surgeons, or continue under the auspices of its current, federated structure as a component board— the Vascular Surgery Board, or VSB—of the American Board of Surgery (ABS)? On the one hand, advocates of a fully independent board advocate the strengthened voice the specialty would have with its own seat at the table of key decision-making bodies like the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), or on the American Medical Association (AMA) RVS Update Committee (RUC) when recommendations are made over Medicare reimbursement. On the other, proponents of the status quo VSB-ABS structure argue that vascular surgery’s voice is more powerful under the much larger ABS umbrella,
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and can call upon a far greater pool of resources as a result. Both sides were articulated during a recent focused session at the 2025 Society for Clinical Vascular Surgery (SCVS) Annual Symposium in Austin, Texas (March 29– April 2), which came in the wake of a recently disseminated Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS) survey which puts the question directly to the SVS membership. In Austin, Alan Dietzek, MD, a vascular surgeon at Hackensack Meridian Health in Edison, New Jersey, put the case forward for a free-standing board, saying that the current VSB has done “an outstanding job” in the role it currently performs but is limited owing to the need for approval of its work in conjunction with the ABS. “There have been no issues to date, but who can predict tomorrow,” he said. “A desire for an independent board is not a vote against the current VSB. It is a vote to change where the
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