President's Message – September 2020​

President's Message – September 2020​
September 2, 2020












President's Message – September 2020​

Dear IUA Members,

First of all, I wish to thank all of you for the support of my presidency. I hope to give a useful and good service to IUA during the next two years.

The world-wide coronavirus pandemic affects all of us. I hope that all of you are fine and that we all together can pass this very difficult moment.

As you know, due to the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, we were forced to cancel the IUA World Congress 2020 in Rome.

Therefore, to keep the benefits of the work done for over two years, we decided to organize a “virtual congress on-demand” with the collection of the presentations that were supposed to be presented at the congress in Rome. The website is www.iua2020.com.

The scientific program includes multidisciplinary symposia, lectures, and free paper and poster sessions on the major topics and advances in the fields of angiology, vascular and cardiovascular medicine and surgery, phlebology, lymphology, thrombo-embolic disease, and interventional techniques.

There are 30 participating societies, 39 symposia with 14 lectures and 204 presentations, 29 selected oral communications, 13 selected oral communications from IUA Youth Committee, and 57 selected posters, corresponding to more than 4 days of the congress.

An outstanding faculty has been assembled to provide the most up-to-date best practice guidelines on vascular topics.

All presented oral communications and e-posters have competed for the “Evi Kalodiki Awards” for the best presentations. The list of winners is reported on the IUA website.

The congress is online from June 15 until the end of December. I invite all of you to take part in this virtual meeting place for angiologists, vascular physicians, vascular surgeons, phlebologists, interventionalists, imaging specialists, scientists, vascular nurses, and wound care specialists from all over the world.

We renewed the structure of the IUA committees with the aim to work hard on the growth of the IUA. The list is available on the website.

In 2017, the IUA has created a new category of membership – the IUA Fellowship. The aim is to recognize members who have achieved outstanding contributions in the field of vascular diseases. Fellows of the IUA (abbreviation FIUA) should represent outstanding, internationally accepted, high-level experts, serving also the Union in different central positions. I invite all of you to present the application for this prestigious position.

Eight new societies have joined the IUA in the last two months (Cuban Society of Angiology and Vascular Surgery, Georgian Association of Angiologists and Vascular Surgeons, Italian Society for Vascular Medicine, Polish Society of Angiology, Portuguese Society of Angiology and Vascular Surgery, Turkish Society of Cardiovascular Surgery, Association of Vascular Surgeons, Phlebologists, Angiologists of Ukraine, and Venous Association of India). The new societies are very active and interested in cooperation under the umbrella of the IUA.

Our goal is to enlarge the IUA and invite other new active societies.

To motivate the current as well as new associate societies (AS), the Executive Committee of the IUA has decided to offer the following advantages:
  • advertising events organized by the AS on the IUA website (“Events” section and homepage)
  • advertising events organized by the AS in the IUA newsletters sent to all IUA members (4 per year)
  • publication of reports of the AS activities on the IUA website (“News” section) and in the IUA newsletter
  • one subscription to the International Angiology journal
  • IUA auspices for the events organized by the AS
  • authorized use of the IUA logo at the events organized by the AS
  • priority for publication of accepted papers in the International Angiology and Vascular Investigation and Therapy
  • participation in the scientific program of the IUA world congresses (dedicated sessions, workshops or lectures)
  • reduced registration fees to IUA world and chapter congresses for the members of the AS
  • possibility to nominate attendees to the IUA courses for young vascular specialists in Prague and Beijing.
The obligations of the associate societies will be the following:
  • payment of the annual fee of 200 EUR or lower according to different categories following the criteria reported below*
  • advertising of the IUA events among the members of the AS
  • motivating members of the AS to become members of the IUA
*category A – standard membership fee set by the Executive Board; category B – reduced fee for AS from the developing countries, at least 50% of the standard fee; category C – waived fee for AS from countries in major crises or with difficult socio-economic environment.

The establishment of the new South Asian Chapter of the IUA was proposed. The goals of this act would be to connect the vascular communities in this part of the world under the umbrella of the IUA, to encourage vascular professionals from this region to join the IUA, to bolster scientific cooperation through the Scientific Committee of the IUA, and to attract new authors of high-quality papers for both IUA journals. The coordinator of this new chapter is Professor Padaria from India.

This new chapter will include India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Bhutan, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Several events shall be organized during the next year:
  • EuroChap Congress in Porto, Portugal (January 2021).
  • North African & Middle East Chapter Congress (September 2021)
  • Chinese Chapter Congress in Beijing, China (October 2021)
  • Pan-American Congress in Cuba (end of 2021)
  • Multinational Chapter Congress in Slovenia (end of 2021)
I invite all of you to send to the IUA Secretariat the list of events organized from your societies to put them on the IUA website.

Last but not least, I remind all the IUA members to visit the IUA website and renew their membership for the next year. Your contribution to the society is very important.

Best wishes to all and see you... virtually.

Prof. Pier Luigi Antignani
President, International Union of Angiology