[The medico-surgical department of vascular disease].

The Department of Vascular Diseases can be defined as a multidisciplinary integrated clinical entity involving internists and surgeons interested in patient care, education and research in the field of arterial, venous and lymphatic diseases. Because of the increasing medical complexity with the proliferation of treatment options available, the combined expertise of specialists from different training background is required to provide the optimal patient management. The truly integrated entity with interactions on daily basis between internists and surgeons also provides opportunities for improvement in the training of fellows in vascular medicine. Basic and clinical research is focused on thrombosis and atherosclerosis. The main topics that have been developed include: the pathophysiology of thrombosis, atherogenesis and the diagnosis and treatment of venous thromboembolic disease. The successful development of our Department demonstrates that the combined expertise of internists and surgeons has resulted in marked improvement in the efficiency of patient management.