THE MAYO VASCULAR CENTER EXPERIENCE

American medicine is trending toward an increasing number of specialty care centers. Cancer centers, transplant centers, and sports medicine centers are only a few common examples. Vascular centers are relative ly new entities that are forming for obvious reasons. As the general p opulation ages, peripheral vascular disease has become more prevalent. Several types of medical, surgical, and radiological specialists are involved in the diagnosis and treatment of such patients. Creating mul tispecialty vascular centers is one method to focus expert care on the patient, to alleviate some of the turf battles between specialties, a nd to contain burgeoning Medicare costs. (C) 1998 The International So ciety for Cardiovascular Surgery. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. A ll rights reserved.