Dear Colleagues,
With Spring around the corner, we are looking forward to both warmer weather and (hopefully) a receding pandemic. Over the last few months, your CSVS executive has been hard at work on some key initiatives.
We are very excited to be returning to an in-person meeting in Vancouver on September 9 & 10, 2022. Program Chairs, Dr. Vic Vucemilo and Dr. Virginia Gunn, and Local Arrangements Chair, Dr. Kirk Lawlor, have already been busy outlining what will be a great meeting. This will be our first opportunity to gather as a specialty in Canada since the pandemic began! Our guest speaker this year is Dr Jason Lee, Department Chair of Vascular Surgery at Stanford. Dr Lee is an accomplished vascular surgeon with a breadth of interests ranging from complex aortic surgery to athletic vascular disorders. He is always an engaging and insightful speaker, and we look forward to his participation at our meeting! Abstract submissions for the meeting are now being accepted and the deadline is April 1, 2022. Please see the website for more details. We are pleased to offer again this year a range of awards, including our prestigious Resident Research Award which is awarded for the best resident research proposal and includes an in-person competition during our annual meeting between the top 3 finalists. In addition to this we continue to offer the Young Investigator’s Award, and the Clinical Investigator’s Award for our members and multiple National Student Research Awards and Benoit Cartier Travel Grants for the undergraduate students. I encourage all who qualify to apply, the deadline is April 1, and again more information can be found on our website.
The National Journal Club initiative continues to be a success. There was an excellent turnout at our last event in November 2021, hosted by Western University. The next one is planned to occur on March 30 and will be hosted by the University of Ottawa’s Division of Vascular Surgery. I encourage everyone to attend. An email with the event details was sent earlier this week.
The guidelines committee, under the leadership of Dr. Varun Kapila, has made further progress on their venous guidelines and vascular lab document, both of which are set to be submitted for publication in the near future. They are also working on a cost-effectiveness analysis based on the AAA screening guidelines which were published last year.
The second national project from the CSVS research group continues under the guidance of Dr. Heather Gill. It is a prospective cohort study of patients treated for juxtarenal aneurysms. There is still time to participate! Please reach out to Dr. Gill for more details if you wish to join this project.
The next CSVS podcast is slated to be released in the next few weeks and features a discussion between Drs. Varun Kapila, Giuseppe Papia, and myself on the topic of burnout. Given the ongoing challenges we all face in our professional lives related to COVID and its aftermath, we felt this topic would be timely and of interest to our membership.
Finally, it is with a heavy heart and profound sadness that I have watched the crisis unfold in the Ukraine. My heart goes out to all the people who have had their lives shattered and displaced by this conflict. The CSVS is committed to supporting its members in these difficult and uncertain times and I want to take this opportunity to thank every one of you for the dedication, service, and ongoing excellent care you provide to our vascular patients and to the broader Canadian medical community.
Wishing you a safe and prosperous 2022!
Sincerely,
Luc Dubois MD, MSc, FRCSC
President Canadian Society for Vascular Surgery
