The birth of the European Society for Vascular Medicine (ESVM) - a new step forward in the development of vascular medicine.

Arterial and venous diseases, but also lymphatic and microvascular disorders account for several of the most challenging public health problems since most of them are chronic, lifethreatening or severely disabling and widespread in the general population. In the recent years, with the development of non invasive explorations and vascular biology, the knowledge about these conditions has dramatically increased, and the need, for the sake of the vascular patients, of a dedicated medical specialty has become obvious. However, a single standard for the practice of vascular medicine does not exist yet and we need to build it. We, the European vascular physicians, have in common an in-depth clinical understanding of vascular disease and treatment, an expertise in hemodynamics and in vascular biology, an interest in minimally invasive arterial and venous treatments, as well as in the prevention, rehabilitation and education of vascular patients. In daily practice, however, our fi eld of activity is quite diff erent from one country to the other, mainly infl uenced by the way our young specialty has grown-up from specifi c roots (cardiology, internal medicine etc.), and by the interaction during its development with its environment, mainly the neighboring specialties and the public health system. Per se, this variety is certainly an incentive to make progress, but this will be true only if we are able to increase our international exchanges in knowledge and skills. For the moment, most of us feel more comfortable inside our own national societies, improving the quality of our own present practices in our own territory. But we do need also to learn from each other, and to cultivate together an optimal model for the vascular physician; this is important for the quality of care our vascular patients deserve, and this is important also for recognition in our own countries. Th e level of recognition of vascular medicine is quite diff erent in the European countries and this puts everyone at risk. Vascular medicine is a full specialty in the German speaking countries and a subspecialty in some others, but in half the 28 member states of the European Union, there is an absence of any formal recognition, not even a dedicated medical society. And we have to realize that, as long as we tolerate such a situation, for the skeptical outsider, vascular medicine might look like an optional stopgap solution for a medical need that is not essential, whatever the magnitude of the public health problem, and the progress in the medical management of vascular diseases may be. Th e representation of vascular medicine at the European level have to be improved. For many years, the International Union of Angiology (IUA) and its European Chapter has been providing a useful international umbrella for medical angiology, i.e. vascular medicine, but the association of both physicians and surgeons in the IUA, interesting from a scientifi c point of view, has also produced a blurred image of vascular medicine. Vascular surgeons have a European society; we need ours, and then the relationship will be clearer, both inside and outside the IUA, for the benefi t of everyone. Recently, VAS association developed European teaching courses and collaborative clinical research with a true spirit for vascular medicine, and obtained the creation of a division of vascular medicine inside the UEMS, which is an essential step forward, but there is a place and a strong need, besides the UEMS division, for a European Society for Vascular Medicine federating the existing national societies and promoting them where there is none.