Vascular Surgery is Overrepresented by Multiple Medical Societies Compared to its Peers

Medical societies play an important role in representing physicians and their interests. Our objective was to compare the number, size, and fiscal strength of vascular societies compared to other cardiovascular specialties. All information was found via a systematic Internet search and with publicly available data (i.e. www.aamc.org). Medical societies representing vascular surgery (VS), cardiology (CARD), cardiothoracic surgery (CTS), and interventional radiology (IR) in the United States were compared. Board-certified physicians (www.abms.org) and publicly available financial information were tabulated (www.ProPublica.org). Board-certified vascular surgeons (n=4464) can choose to join 30 VS societies (4 national, 10 regional, 12 city/state, 4 other). In comparison, 12 societies (2 national) represent CTS (n=5869) and 16 (1 national) represent IR (n=4032) physicians. Cardiologists (n=22843) are represented by 14 (5 national) societies and an additional 27 chapters of a parent national society. The available number of vascular surgeons per national society is markedly lower than comparative specialties. Vascular societies generated $23M in revenue compared to $52M for CTS, $6M for IR, and $1.03B for CARD. CARD societies have 93% of total revenue for these four specialties and 52 times the revenues compared to VS societies. Compared to similar specialties, VS has few surgeons, yet a high number of medical societies. This segmentation may dilute the educational, governmental, societal, and patient advocacy impact of VS compared to its peers.