The Vascular Surgery Board of the American Board of Surgery: Our Independent Board

Abstract

It is undeniable that the current practice of vascular surgery evolved from its roots in general surgery. Many of the major operations that define our discipline were originally described in the mid-1950s, and I hold the pioneers of open vascular surgery in the same awe as those that developed the more recent endovascular therapies. It was incredibly bold to replace the infrarenal aorta with a prosthetic graft or to revascularize the lower torso from a single axillary artery, similar to the unfathomable concept that a fabric-covered stent could effectively repair an infrarenal abdominal aortic aneurysm.