July 2005 | Vol. 23, No 7

SVU's 28th Annual Conference

Early Morning Tutorial

SVU’s 28th Annual Conference is a Great Success

The Society for Vascular Ultrasound’s 28th Annual Conference in Chicago, June 16-18, was a great educational opportunity for 394 registrants and an exhibition with more than 148 vendors. This was the largest attendance at an SVU Annual Conference since the 20th Anniversary Meeting in 2002 in New Orleans and was a 22% increase in attendance since last year’s annual meeting in Anaheim, CA. Many thanks for all your support, especially with the room block problem at the Hyatt Regency Chicago Hotel!

General Session

For the second time, SVU’s annual conference was held in conjunction with the annual scientific meetings of the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS), the Peripheral Vascular Surgery Society (PVSS) and the Society for Vascular Medicine and Biology (SVMB). With over 1500 attendees from all four societies, this was the vascular event of the year!

This year’s conference offered attendees the choice of two pre-conference sessions, one being an “ICAVL Accreditation Workshop” and the other on “Vascular Lab Management.” Prior to the start of the conference, many attendees also chose to attend an “SVU/SVS Registered Physician in Vascular Interpretation Exam Review Course.”

Robert Zwolak, MD

The strength and variety of the topics at the 2005 SVU Annual Conference excited and engrossed the meeting attendees. Special thanks to the Annual Conference Committee, Chaired by Kathleen Carter, BSN RN RVT FSVU, for a great job on the 2005 program. Meeting highlights included:

• Nine early morning tutorials,
• Three general sessions,
• Keynote Presentation on the “Changing Role of the Vascular Lab Today” by Robert Zwolak, MD PhD RVT,
• Government Relations, Reimbursement, and Coding Update Session
• Two special “Lunch with the Experts Sessions,”
• Ergonomics Session,
• Invited Speakers Sessions on the topics of Hemodialysis Access; Hemodynamics; and Novel Applications in the Vascular Lab,
• Panel Presentation on Technical Errors and Interesting Case Presentations,
• The annual SVU Business Meeting was a great source of information for members, and
• Excitement was especially high around the presentation of several awards including the Dr. Alex Chao - Young Investigators Award, and the induction of three new Fellows for 2005.

We look forward with great anticipation to next year’s meeting on June 1-3, 2006 in Philadelphia, PA at the Philadelphia Convention Center. A 2006 Call for Papers is already available at the SVU website.