Abstract
This is already our 9th European Venous Course, as part of the 20th European Vascular Course, with again important contributions of a lot of experts in the field. The year 2016 shows a further increased interest for the care for patients with venous disease. Patient organizations, physicians, medical institutions, hospitals and industry all identify the burden of this disease for the patients and the socioeconomic impact and acknowledged the importance of a better collaboration.
The established European College of Phlebology, the foundation of the Multidisciplinary Joint Committee of Phlebology and lately the creation of a European Board of Phlebology within the UEMS illustrate this. These organizations will be responsible for yearly updated guidelines, education, training and finally certification of Phlebology in Europe.
The International Compression Club (ICC) decided to incorporate their annual meeting again in the program on Sunday and Monday between 14:00 and 18:00 h covering all aspects of compression. Because compression is the cornerstone of venous ulcer care, we also organized a session addressing wound management.
The program this year concentrates on new insights and developments especially related to deep vein thrombosis and the post-thrombotic syndrome. Pathophysiology and management are important topics to these subjects. A session on all controversies in upper extremity outflow obstructions is also included. Of course are all novel non-tumescent treatments for varicose veins an important part of the program and finally the importance of registration, assessment of quality of care questionnaires and clinical scoring systems is added to the program.
Traditionally, we will have several video-edited live cases and clinical case discussions.
Due to the full program, we were not able to create time for a keynote speaker, but we will restore this tradition next year.
We are again very pleased with the fact that Phlebology agreed to publish the papers presented during the European venous course in this Supplement of Phlebology. All the important educative contributions for the European Venous Course will therefore be available for a much bigger audience, although we were very proud of our, every year well appreciated, venous course book. Next year, we will stop doing this and try to improve knowledge exchange in a more modern interactive way.
Besides this theoretical information, presented in the Supplement, it is recognized that hands-on training is mostly needed and much appreciated. This is why again the popular venous master classes, in which participants get hands-on training in superficial and deep venous treatments, are organized for two days. We abandoned the for years well-appreciated carousel and asked the companies involved to organize their own workshops. We will have more than 15 different workshops scheduled during Sunday and Monday afternoon between 15:00 and 18:00 h. Because the interest in Duplex Ultrasound diagnostics is extensive, we decided to organize parallel to these workshops Duplex demonstrations every day between 17:00 and 18:00 h in which all diagnostic tips and tricks for superficial and deep vein diagnostics in patients with different pathology before and after therapy will be shown.
This European Venous Course is specially designed for all healthcare workers in the field of venous disease like vascular surgeons, dermatologists, phlebologists, angiologists, vascular technicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants. The fact that industry is more and more involved shows that their focus on education and training is growing. We are convinced that they are our partners and not our sponsors, although it is clear that without their financial support a meeting like this is impossible. Therefore, we are very grateful to our major and regular partners for their contribution and confidence in this European Venous Course. Although new Eucomed rules together with the new standards to ensure the independence of CME activities restrict an intensive collaboration, it is our opinion that we should integrate more because our goal – to improve the quality of care for the patient with a venous problem – is exactly the same. We are convinced that cooperation with industries and healthcare workers in the field of venous disease will positively influence the quality of care and possible new innovations in venous care.