The Promise of the New
“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and do other things, not
because they are easy but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.” - John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962, Rice University
Russia had just given the United States a one-two punch - first with Sputnik, and then with Yuri Gagarian becoming the first man in space.
In JFK’s speech, these two sentences say it all. This is a man articulating a position of “take no prisoners”. This is a man resolved to change the course of the future by leading our Country into what would become the ultimate statement in American scientific ingenuity and prowess. This is the Promise of the New.
JFK was not a man to settle for second best. We shouldn’t either.
As the vein world continues to grow, VEIN Magazine plans to set goals for ourselves and our readers - goals and challenges which should be faced and accomplished together.
In this issue, our contributors cover clinical challenges likenew DVT and PE interventional treatments, venous ulcer management, and how and if compression stockings impact athletic performance. And because the challenges of a vein practice are always moving targets - with rules changing and third party payors issuing edicts about care that may make no sense - our articles about EMR /EHR and avoiding costly social media marketing mistakes within a practice will serve to help you better understand and meet the needs for success.
New products always present choices and challenges - how to evaluate them, when to use them, and whether they really are better than what we have now. All new products by definition offer the Promise of the New. I love new products for this reason. Doing the same old thing becomes the same old thing - and who wants to be the same old thing? The Promise of the New helps us stay fresh, young and challenged. Our articles about new laser wavelength, simulator training and new products endeavor to do just that.
Finally, we address the hard choice that we have made to further awareness about venous disease and to always
improve and explore the educational tools to attain this goal. This challenge can only be met with one solution - cooperation. See Rob McLafferty’s interview in Featured Doctor and the Education by Elias column for some examples of how we, as a community, hold the future in our hands.
Just as JFK got government, industry and US citizens to work together to attain the difficult challenge of putting
a man on the moon; we need this same attitude from the triumvirate of venous societies, industry and vein specialists to eventually make the Promise of the New a reality. If we don’t make this difficult choice, we miss the significance of our past and languish in the safety of the present.
“In short, our leadership in science and in industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to
ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men …”
Steve Elias, MD, FACS, FACPh
Medical Director
