World federation of vascular societies

Message From the WFVS President

Dear Council Members, Member Societies and Fellow Vascular Surgeons,

As a body that formally connects nine major vascular societies worldwide, the World Federation of Vascular Societies (WFVS) is uniquely positioned to shape the future of our specialty. The founders of the WFVS recognised this opportunity in 2005 — that together we could elevate standards, foster innovation, and extend contemporary vascular care across borders. It is with honour, humility, and a profound sense of responsibility that I assume the role of the 20th President of our world federation in 2026, committed to advancing this vision and strengthening the global voice of vascular surgery.

As a show of gratitude to the founders, past presidents, secretary generals and councillors, I would like to highlight three aspects of our federation—and how we can expand them moving forward.

Custodian of Standards

Advanced, contemporary vascular surgery may not have a singular definition worldwide. However, in 2026, a contemporary vascular surgeon is a medical practitioner fully trained in both open vascular and endovascular techniques, who practices exclusively in vascular surgery. This specialist manages a broad spectrum of conditions, including arterial and venous pathologies, renal access, vascular trauma, and high-risk foot disease, all guided by evidence-based practices. The societies represented in the WFVS all have structured training programs or mechanisms for recognition of this level of contemporary vascular and endovascular surgeons. By joining the WFVS, a society in fact joins the league of vascular surgeons who meet these benchmark standards. Above and beyond the minimum standards within the federation, some societies lead the way by defining evidence-based practice through publication of guidelines, while others have the responsibility to offer equitable vascular care as “best as possible” within resource-limited settings. Maintaining these benchmark standards is crucially important as we embark on growth, bringing the benefits of modern vascular surgery to underserved areas of our globe while appreciating the spectrum of healthcare services we represent. Growth must not dilute excellence. It must extend it.

Incubator for Ideas

Vascular surgeons are wholly and perhaps by selection innovative and entrepreneurial. A forum where vascular surgeons from around the world meet formally and discuss events, advances, and challenges with their respective societies and regions forms an excellent incubator for the growth of ideas, collaboration, and startups. These include for- and not-for-profit ventures, and to mention a few such opportunities: the Distal Bypass Competition of the Japanese Society of Vascular Surgery that took candidates from around the world including the United States; the Safe Patient initiative introduced to the council by my immediate predecessor Dr. Pradeep Mistry; and the Global Training Initiative brought forward by Secretary General Dr. Palma Shaw.

I have personally been a beneficiary of this function of the federation. As a councillor representing the ANZSVS, I was given the privilege of putting forward my idea of a program to help train vascular surgeons for underserved areas of the world, called Global Vascular Companionship Program. I received overwhelming support from fellow councillors and, with letters of support from the WFVS, undertook the program’s first mission to Ethiopia. This startup has now been registered formally as a charity in Australia with several World Federation councillors in it’s leadership. It continues to enjoy support from the WFVS, including a delegation of surgeons from South Africa and JSVS headed by Dr. Hideaki Obara travelling to Australia in January 2026 to support the GVC inaugural vascular skills and trauma workshop. I believe we must emphasise this function of the federation by encouraging councillors to put forward new ideas and initiatives to Council meetings through calls for new agenda items prior to those meetings.

A Vessel for Capacity Building in Underserved Areas

The sad reality is that in 2026, there are still many countries and many more major end-of-the-line hospitals that do not have even a single vascular and endovascular surgeon. On the opposite, the burden of vascular disease is rapidly on the rise in low- and middle-income countries. Through my work with Global Vascular Companionship, I have been involved with several needs-assessment missions, and it is clearly evident that this deficiency is not equally distributed among the surgical specialties—vascular surgery is often the most underdeveloped. In many examples I’ve come across, the main obstacle to development of vascular services is the absence of a fully trained vascular and endovascular surgeon. Lack of infrastructure, in my experience (and often to my surprise), has not been a determining factor in many tertiary low-income country hospital settings. This discrepancy has created an urgent and growing need to train vascular surgeons for these areas. The WFVS is uniquely positioned to make a difference here. Firstly, with representation from eight vascular societies, it is the best authority to advise international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and national health ministries on vascular surgery development in low- and middle-income countries. One of the goals of my term is to see the formal establishment of communication between the WHO and the WFVS so that sufficient attention is paid to the development of vascular surgery in guidelines and plans set out by the WHO. The second area where the federation plays an active part is through the recent establishment of the WFVS international fellowships which provides recent graduates of vascular surgery with post-fellowship training opportunities in Japan and the United States at this time, and hopefully we will see this grow to more spots in the future. As vascular surgeons, we are scalable. By “teaching the teachers that teach the students,”- (a quote from my good friend Dr Alan Lumsden) we can expand vascular training opportunities to meet the growing need worldwide. As we see the establishment of new vascular surgeons around the world, it also falls on our shoulders to help these new countries and regions develop new societies that uphold the standards that would see them admitted to the WFVS.

Finally, we must continue to document our contributions. The World Federation Newsletter, established by former President and now Historian Dr Prem Gupta, plays a crucial role in this endeavour, ensuring that as we look forward, we continue to learn from the past. At the end, I would like to offer special thanks for the tireless work and leadership of the Secretary General of the World Federation, Professor Palma Shaw, without whom we would not have seen the strong position of this Federation. None of the milestone gains we have made in recent years would have been possible without her. I would also like to thank Mrs. Joanna Bronson for her dedicated administrative support to the organisation.

I thank the Council for the trust placed in me. It is an honour and privilege to serve, and I look forward to advancing these three pillars of our Federation in the years ahead and passing on the baton to our president elect Dr Takao Ohki at the end of the year.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Iman Bayat
President, World Federation of Vascular Societies

February 2026