ACP History & Timeline

The American College of Phlebology (ACP) was originally founded in 1985 as the North American Society of Phlebology by Dr. Anton Butie.

The purpose of the College was to bring together physicians and surgeons from diverse specialties who share an interest in the diagnosis and treatment of peripheral venous disease.

History image In 1986, the organization was incorporated and in 1997, the Society changed its name from the North American Society of Phlebology to the American College of Phlebology. This was felt to more accurately reflect the broadened scope and improved quality of the educational sessions sponsored by the Society.

As set out by our visionary founders, the ACP has always been an inclusive organization.

The College has taken a broad approach to the advancement of the field, and welcomes physicians from various specialty backgrounds and recognizes nurses and ultrasound technology health professionals as valued contributors. In this way, knowledge is disseminated, greater insights realized, and the care of this vast group of patients is improved more rapidly.

The history of the College has been one of dramatic growth and expansion.

The first meeting was held on August 4th, 1985, with fourteen founding members present in Encinitas, California. Since that time the American College of Phlebology has held twenty annual congresses, the most recent of which had over 750 registrants and 65 exhibiting companies. In 2007, ACP meetings as a whole brought nearly a thousand physicians and allied health care providers together to hear the latest in scientific advances in the field of phlebology and to learn from a variety of keynote lectures, small group sessions, instructional courses, and hands-on workshops. Our Annual Congress includes separate symposia organized by the Phlebology Nursing Section and by the Ultrasonography Section. We now have over 2000 physicians and allied health members.

In 1999, the College started publishing a quarterly newsletter.

The VeinLine contains original articles in practical phlebology, excerpts of articles of foreign literature and information regarding national and international meetings.

In 2004, the College published The Fundamentals of Phlebology: Venous Disease for Clinicians. This soft-cover book is a resource for venous anatomy & physiology, recent advances in treatment options and a rationale for the overall approach to the phlebology patient. In meeting the challenge of educating its diverse membership, the board commissioned a survey in June of 2005 to identify the most critical priorities. The results focused the Board’s efforts on specialty recognition, board certification, academic fellowship programs, expanded educational meetings and research interests.

As a result of the initiatives undertaken by the ACP, the American Medical Association (AMA) announced the decision to approve the College’s application for recognition of phlebology as a self-designated specialty.

An AMA member can now designate phlebology as a primary or secondary specialty, the same as dermatology, cardiology, or any other recognized specialty. This recognition is a pivotal step toward increasing the credibility and visibility of the specialty by colleagues in other fields, industry and patients. Recently, the American Osteopathic Association also recognized phlebology as a distinct practice discipline as have a number of state medical organizations.

The ACP Board recognized the opportunity and responsibility that came with the AMA decision, but realized that the major initiatives our membership wanted required the commitment of major resources. To find such resources, the American College of Phlebology Foundation (ACPF) was launched at our November 2006 Annual Congress. This major achievement laid the groundwork for the expansion of programs and initiatives, for this year and well into our future. Strategically, defining the content of phlebology training programs became the next priority. The ACP recently published its first statement regarding content in its official journal, Phlebology. Following this, the ACP Board Certification Development Task Force selected an outside organization to assist in the development of a comprehensive, high quality, psychometrically valid exam in phlebology. In support and partnership with ACP, the ACPF Board approved funding the development of the exam. The first American Board of Phlebology Certification exam was administered in May 2008.

The Fellowship Program Committee simultaneously defined a Phlebology Fellowship Program patterned after an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) post-graduate medical training program. The ACP Board recently announced the creation of a Phlebology Fellowship that provides 12 months of postgraduate training in phlebology. After a competitive selection process, the first ACP Phlebology Fellowship program was approved at UCSD under the direction of Dr. John J. Bergan, which commenced in July 2007. The ACPF has expressed interest in funding more of these programs. Additional Phlebology Fellowship programs will be approved only after fulfilling rigorous standards of training and excellence. Graduates of approved Phlebology Fellowships will be eligible to sit for the Board Certification Exam in Phlebology. Applications to host a Phlebology Fellowship in the U.S. are available on the ACP website.

The ACP recently developed three research grant programs, with an annual amount of up to $150,000 funded by the ACP Foundation.

The ACP New Investigator Grant Program is designed to assist new investigators with a career interest in phlebology research. The ACP Research-In-Practice Grant Program is designed to assist clinical phlebologists who are not established as independent researchers in initiating a clinical research project of importance to the field of phlebology. The ACP Research Trainee Grant Program is designed to provide young investigators not yet professionally established in the phlebological sciences with an opportunity to gain insight into scientific investigation in the field of phlebology. The Research Programs Committee will strive to ensure that research projects are distributed over a range of topics representative of the breadth and diversity of the field of phlebology.

The American College of Phlebology is poised to have an enormous impact on the care of patients with venous disease.

We continue to seek new opportunities to improve the education of physicians, medical staff, and laypersons about phlebology and to advance the highest standard of care for patients with venous disease.

Currently, the ACP is working on a number of new initiatives. To learn more, view our progress.

Presidents of the ACP

1985 - 1988: Anton Butie, MD
1989 - 1990: Walter P. de Groot, MD
1991 - 1992: Mitchel P. Goldman, MD
1993 - 1994: David E. Smith, MD
1995 - 1996: Wayne M. Marley, MD
1997 - 1998: Robert A. Weiss, MD
1999 - 2000: Helane S. Fronek, MD
2001 - 2002: Craig F. Feied, MD
2003 - 2004: Neil S. Sadick, MD
2005 - 2006: Steven E. Zimmet, MD
2007 - 2008: Robert J. Min, MD
2009 - Current: Nick Morrison, MD