By Larry Storer
The International Vein Conference scheduled for April 30-May 2 in Miami Beach, Florida, has been delayed until July, Chairman Jose I. Almeida said March 20. At the time it was either to be July 9-11 or 10-12. He hopes to have the final date nailed down by March 23.
Due to the coronavirus outbreak and travel issues:
The 18th International Vein Congress will be in mid-July.
- The 11th Annual Venous Symposium 2020, which was to have been March 18-21, was delayed until July 30-Aug. 1 in New York.
- The American Vein & Lymphatic Society has cancelled or delayed several of its courses.
- The Outpatient Endovascular and Interventional Society has delayed its 2020 Annual National Scientific Meeting scheduled for April 24-26 in Dallas to a yet-to-be determined date and location.
IVC 2020
The IVC with the Society for Vascular Surgery was the last vein conference to delay. Until mid-March, conference administrators held out hope that the event’s late-April/early May date might survive the coronavirus outbreak travel issues and an infection curve might have begun to flatten. However, it finally became apparent that Florida’s infection numbers and deaths were beginning to spike.
Planners are still trying to arrive at a date with the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in collaboration with the Society for Vascular Surgery (SVS).
VS 2020
A VS 2020 spokesman said attendees who registered for VS 2020 have three options:
- All registrations will automatically be transferred to the new July dates.
- Registered attendees may choose to apply their current registration to Venous Symposium 2021, which will take place April 15 – 17, 2021, at the Sheraton New York Times Square.
- Get a refund. If you wish to receive a refund, send a written request to registration@ccmcme.com before April 20. It will take up to 30 days for the refund to be processed.
“Our top priority at VS is the health and safety of our participants,” Dr. Antonios Gasparis said. “Given the rapidly changing circumstances and unknown nature of this virus we have decided to postpone VS 2020 until July 30-Aug. 1, 2020.”
AVLS NON-THERMAL SYMPOSIUM,
LYMPHEDEMA, RPHS REVIEW COURSES
The American Vein & Lymphatic Society has delayed the Non-Thermal Symposium that was to have been in April until a day to be determined in August in Providence, Rhode Island.
In addition, the AVLS has cancelled the Lymphedema Course due to travel concerns and rescheduled the RPhS review course to Aug. 14 or 15 in Providence.
AUSTRALASIAN ACP
The 21st meeting of the Australasian College of Phlebology (ACP) Annual Scientific Meeting is still scheduled (as of deadline) for May 2-5 at the Pullman Hotel in Auckland, New Zealand.
Lowell S. Kabnick, MD, an internationally recognized vascular surgeon and teacher, was scheduled to address the Australasian ACP’s Annual Scientific Meeting.
OEIS 2020
The Outpatient Endovascular and Interventional Society is delaying its 7th Annual National Scientific Meeting, originally scheduled for April 24-26 at the Fairmont Dallas Hotel. The staff is said to be finalizing a new date for the 2020 scientific meeting.
“Please be assured that we will provide additional information as it becomes available hopefully in the next few days,” a spokesman said March 17. “All registrations received to date will be honored for the new 2020 conference.”
IMAGING CONFERENCES
The American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine (AIUM) announced March 16 that it has canceled its annual meeting scheduled for March 21-25 in New York City.
AIUM leadership said it made the decision to cancel the conference to help “flatten the curve” of infection and keep the focus of healthcare workers on helping to stop the spread of the virus.
It is the first annual meeting to be canceled in the organization’s 70-year history. AIUM 2021 will be held April 10-14, 2021, in Orlando, Florida.
Other radiology meetings that have been canceled or postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak include the European Congress of Radiology, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, the International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, the Society of Interventional Radiology, and the American College of Cardiology.
HIMSS LATE CANCELLATION
Just four days from the start of the giant annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Orlando March 9, HIMSS pulled the plug. This was the first time in its 58 years existence that the conference was cancelled.
HIMSS 2020 was by far the largest medical conference to be affected by the coronavirus outbreak, with some 45,000 attendees, many of whom were already in Orlando when it was cancelled. In the days leading up to the announcement, a number of vendors had announced that they were pulling out of the exhibition, including Siemens Healthineers, Visage Imaging, Change Healthcare, Dell Technologies and Butterfly Network.
HIMSS President and CEO Hal Wolf said another consideration was the risk to the healthcare system given the “unique medical profile” of HIMSS attendees traveling to Florida from around the world and the “consequences of potentially displacing healthcare workers during a critical time, as well as stressing the local health systems were there to be an adverse event.”
“It is now clear that cancellation is unavoidable in order to meet HIMSS’ obligation to protect the health and safety of the global HIMSS community, employees, and local residents, as well as for the healthcare providers tasked with keeping our U.S. and global communities healthy,” Wolf said.
Then on March 11, President Donald Trump closed the United States to travelers from Europe in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Speakers and attendees from European countries who could not travel left holes in programs and empty seats at of a number of U.S. medical conferences. Following the President’s first press conference on the outbreak, the CDC recommended that Americans avoid large crowds, and some states and cities have limited the size of events that could be held. VTN