Society of Vascular Surgery Annual General Meeting

The Society of Vascular Surgery (SVS) Annual General Meeting is the largest meeting of vascular surgeons in the world. In May, the Division of Vascular Surgery supported Cale Zavitz, a second year medical student who had won an SVS travel scholarship, to attend the 2013 SVS Annual General Meeting in San Francisco, California. There, he participated in a Residents’ and Students program, which featured mentorship from a staff vascular surgeon and networking opportunities, as well as numerous sessions specifically geared to junior trainees. The student program included a training session which taught basic surgical skills like knot-tying, then students had the opportunity to learn how to perform catheterbased endovascular interventions including angioplasty and stenting using high-fidelity simulators. He was able to attend the plenary sessions and see the most current vascular surgery research, before participating in a vascular surgical skills competition to finish the weekend. Cale found that the best part of the conference was the hands-on practice that students were given. “This was my first opportunity to learn and practice open or endovascular techniques, and the challenge really reinforced my interest in surgery,” he said. Cale thanks Thomas Lindsay and the Division of Vascular Surgery for supporting him in this opportunity.

Division of Vascular Surgery