Fundamentals of Vascular Surgery (FVS)
Please find support materials for the Fundamentals of Vascular Surgery open skills curriculum. Several years in the making, this curriculum has distilled open skills in Vascular Surgery down to three tasks that form the building blocks of most surgical procedures. These tasks incorporate foundational techniques that must be mastered by every vascular trainee:
- Patch angioplasty
- End-to-side anastomosis
- Precision suturing around a clockface
Instructions for performing these skills and sample scoring sheets can be found on this page.
The goal of the FVS open curriculum is to be both a benchmark for attainment of skills and also a guide along the way. The Vascular Surgery Board aims to make successful performance of these tasks a requirement for Board Certification, therefore mastery will be required for all vascular trainees in the near future. Our hope however, is that the FVS can have a broader use as part of the skills curriculum in your own institution. The validated skills can be the foundation of training for your vascular residents and fellows, integrated into a general surgery training program or used to introduce medical students to the field of vascular surgery. We look forward to seeing how you use this curriculum and welcome any ideas you have about best practices for implementation.