Society for vascular surgery distinguished service award—2003

The Society for Vascular Surgery Distinguished Service Award for the year 2003 is given to Anthony M. Imparato, MD. Dr Imparato is one of the founding fathers of vascular surgery. He was born in 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. He received his undergraduate degree from Columbia College, and his medical degree in 1946 from New York University (NYU) School of Medicine, where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. He completed his surgical training with the NYU Post-Graduate Medical School Service at Bellevue Hospital, under the direction of J. William Hinton, MD. He remained for an additional 2 years after general surgery training, during which time he was appointed Chief Resident, training under the direction of Jere Lord, MD, in vascular surgery, thoracic surgery, and the fledgling specialty of cardiac surgery, before invention of the heart-lung machine. After completion of his training, Dr Imparato moved to Santa Rosa, California, where he practiced for 2 years. He is proud that during this time he performed all of the operative procedures he learned during his residency. Nonetheless, he thoroughly missed academic surgery, so in 1958 joined the faculty of NYU. Dr Imparato progressed through the academic ranks at NYU, and is currently Professor of Surgery Emeritus. He has authored or coauthored 171 papers published in preeminent journals. Review of his work shows significant contributions to the evolution of vascular surgery over its first 50 years. Dr Imparato’s greatest contribution, in my estimation, is his demonstration of the value of the technical aspects of vascular surgical reconstructions. He was a perfectionist in the operating room, who both gave and demanded technical excellence. He first demonstrated, in carotid artery surgery, that technical conduction of the operation is the most significant determinant of a successful outcome. His initial work studying atherosclerotic plaque structure and its evaluation was seminal. The early finding of the role of subplaque hemorrhage in terms of a particular plaque becoming symptomatic was an outstanding contribution. He was one of the early investigators to understand the significance of fibrointimal hyperplasia and how it might affect the intermediate and long-term outcomes of vascular reconstructions, and in 1972 published the first article on the topic. The NYU group was one of the first to perform carotid endarterectomy in awake patients. In 1979 they were one of the early groups to document dilatation of Dacron grafts. The work that most significantly affected my surgical technique was the description of how to avoid distal embolization with proper placement of clamps on iliac vessels during aortic reconstruction. In 1968 Dr Imparato inaugurated the NYU fellowship in vascular surgery, which was one of the first peripheral vascular surgery fellowships in the United States. His first fellow was Dr George Sanoudas. This fellowship program produced some of today’s outstanding leaders in vascular surgery, including the current president of the American Association for Vascular Surgery, Thomas Riles, MD, and Drs Paul Walker, Frank Pomposelli, Michael Sobel, Patrick Lamparello, and Marc Posner. Dr Imparato stepped down as Chief of Vascular Surgery in 1991. He has served as President of a variety of surgical organizations, including the New York Regional Vascular Society. He was the 39th president, in 1985, of the Society for Vascular Surgery. For his contributions over a half-century to vascular surgery, and particularly to the Society for Vascular Surgery, we are proud to present Dr Anthony Imparato with the Society for Vascular Surgery Distinguished Service Award.