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NEW YORK – Vascular surgeons are the only specialty qualified to treat all vascular disorders with open surgery and/or endovascular treatment, including the thoracic aorta, according to the updated “Guidelines for hospital privileges in vascular surgery and endovascular interventions: Recommendations of the Society for Vascular Surgery.”
The guidelines, published in May’s Journal of Vascular Surgery, were last updated in 2008, said Keith D. Calligaro, MD, who spoke on their importance and potential benefits to vascular surgeons during his presentation at the VEITHsymposium.
The thoracic aorta component of the guidelines addresses scope of practice concerns between vascular and thoracic surgeons, said Dr. Calligaro, who is a clinical professor of surgery, University of Pennsylvania, and chief of vascular surgery and endovascular therapy at Pennsylvania Hospital, both in Philadelphia.
The guidelines relied on training requirements to provide some of the data to define vascular surgeons and privileges. The open vascular surgery training requirements still are defined by the Residency Review Committee for surgery, and those requirements include 250 major open vascular cases during training, including 30 open abdominal operations, 25 carotid, 45 peripheral open surgery cases, and 10 complex vascular surgeries, said Dr. Calligaro. “In terms of endovascular treatment, the training requirements are over 100 diagnostic caths and over 80 therapeutic interventions, and during training you would have had to have done more than 20 EVARs [endovascular aneurysm repairs].” That number jumped up from five EVARs in the previous guidelines.
Ultimately, “the SVS is basically saying ‘you need to be a vascular surgeon to perform vascular surgery,’ and you need have to have completed an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education–accredited vascular residency.
“So if you are a general surgeon or a heart surgeon and you go to a new hospital and say ‘I want to do vascular,’ the vascular surgeon at that institution can refer to this document and say ‘no, the SVS is saying [the surgeon doesn’t] have the training.’ And I think that’s a pretty gutsy and important call,” said Dr. Calligaro.
It is a different case for endovascular surgery, he said. In this case, the requirement is to have completed an ACGME-accredited program in either vascular surgery, interventional radiology, or interventional cardiology to indicate the appropriate level of training. But SVS agreed with the recommendation by the American College of Cardiology that cardiologists not only had to complete 1 year of coronary interventions but also 1 year of peripheral intervention training, as well.
“So if you are at your hospital and have a cardiologist who is starting to do peripheral vascular stuff, now at least you can wave part of this document and say ‘Hey, look, the most important vascular society in the country is saying that, unless this individual had a year of peripheral training, this cardiologist should not be allowed to do endovascular peripheral interventions,’ ” Dr. Calligaro said.
SOURCE: Calligaro KD et al. J Vasc Surg. 2018 May;67(5):1337-44.
NEW YORK – Vascular surgeons are the only specialty qualified to treat all vascular disorders with open surgery and/or endovascular treatment, including the thoracic aorta, according to the updated “Guidelines for hospital privileges in vascular surgery and endovascular interventions: Recommendations of the Society for Vascular Surgery.”
The guidelines, published in May’s Journal of Vascular Surgery, were last updated in 2008, said Keith D. Calligaro, MD, who spoke on their importance and potential benefits to vascular surgeons during his presentation at the VEITHsymposium.
The thoracic aorta component of the guidelines addresses scope of practice concerns between vascular and thoracic surgeons, said Dr. Calligaro, who is a clinical professor of surgery, University of Pennsylvania, and chief of vascular surgery and endovascular therapy at Pennsylvania Hospital, both in Philadelphia.
The guidelines relied on training requirements to provide some of the data to define vascular surgeons and privileges. The open vascular surgery training requirements still are defined by the Residency Review Committee for surgery, and those requirements include 250 major open vascular cases during training, including 30 open abdominal operations, 25 carotid, 45 peripheral open surgery cases, and 10 complex vascular surgeries, said Dr. Calligaro. “In terms of endovascular treatment, the training requirements are over 100 diagnostic caths and over 80 therapeutic interventions, and during training you would have had to have done more than 20 EVARs [endovascular aneurysm repairs].” That number jumped up from five EVARs in the previous guidelines.
Ultimately, “the SVS is basically saying ‘you need to be a vascular surgeon to perform vascular surgery,’ and you need have to have completed an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education–accredited vascular residency.
“So if you are a general surgeon or a heart surgeon and you go to a new hospital and say ‘I want to do vascular,’ the vascular surgeon at that institution can refer to this document and say ‘no, the SVS is saying [the surgeon doesn’t] have the training.’ And I think that’s a pretty gutsy and important call,” said Dr. Calligaro.
It is a different case for endovascular surgery, he said. In this case, the requirement is to have completed an ACGME-accredited program in either vascular surgery, interventional radiology, or interventional cardiology to indicate the appropriate level of training. But SVS agreed with the recommendation by the American College of Cardiology that cardiologists not only had to complete 1 year of coronary interventions but also 1 year of peripheral intervention training, as well.
“So if you are at your hospital and have a cardiologist who is starting to do peripheral vascular stuff, now at least you can wave part of this document and say ‘Hey, look, the most important vascular society in the country is saying that, unless this individual had a year of peripheral training, this cardiologist should not be allowed to do endovascular peripheral interventions,’ ” Dr. Calligaro said.
SOURCE: Calligaro KD et al. J Vasc Surg. 2018 May;67(5):1337-44.
NEW YORK – Vascular surgeons are the only specialty qualified to treat all vascular disorders with open surgery and/or endovascular treatment, including the thoracic aorta, according to the updated “Guidelines for hospital privileges in vascular surgery and endovascular interventions: Recommendations of the Society for Vascular Surgery.”
The guidelines, published in May’s Journal of Vascular Surgery, were last updated in 2008, said Keith D. Calligaro, MD, who spoke on their importance and potential benefits to vascular surgeons during his presentation at the VEITHsymposium.
The thoracic aorta component of the guidelines addresses scope of practice concerns between vascular and thoracic surgeons, said Dr. Calligaro, who is a clinical professor of surgery, University of Pennsylvania, and chief of vascular surgery and endovascular therapy at Pennsylvania Hospital, both in Philadelphia.
The guidelines relied on training requirements to provide some of the data to define vascular surgeons and privileges. The open vascular surgery training requirements still are defined by the Residency Review Committee for surgery, and those requirements include 250 major open vascular cases during training, including 30 open abdominal operations, 25 carotid, 45 peripheral open surgery cases, and 10 complex vascular surgeries, said Dr. Calligaro. “In terms of endovascular treatment, the training requirements are over 100 diagnostic caths and over 80 therapeutic interventions, and during training you would have had to have done more than 20 EVARs [endovascular aneurysm repairs].” That number jumped up from five EVARs in the previous guidelines.
Ultimately, “the SVS is basically saying ‘you need to be a vascular surgeon to perform vascular surgery,’ and you need have to have completed an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education–accredited vascular residency.
“So if you are a general surgeon or a heart surgeon and you go to a new hospital and say ‘I want to do vascular,’ the vascular surgeon at that institution can refer to this document and say ‘no, the SVS is saying [the surgeon doesn’t] have the training.’ And I think that’s a pretty gutsy and important call,” said Dr. Calligaro.
It is a different case for endovascular surgery, he said. In this case, the requirement is to have completed an ACGME-accredited program in either vascular surgery, interventional radiology, or interventional cardiology to indicate the appropriate level of training. But SVS agreed with the recommendation by the American College of Cardiology that cardiologists not only had to complete 1 year of coronary interventions but also 1 year of peripheral intervention training, as well.
“So if you are at your hospital and have a cardiologist who is starting to do peripheral vascular stuff, now at least you can wave part of this document and say ‘Hey, look, the most important vascular society in the country is saying that, unless this individual had a year of peripheral training, this cardiologist should not be allowed to do endovascular peripheral interventions,’ ” Dr. Calligaro said.
SOURCE: Calligaro KD et al. J Vasc Surg. 2018 May;67(5):1337-44.
REPORTING FROM THE VEITHSYMPOSIUM