President's Update - December 2024
Dear Colleagues,
As we approach the conclusion of 2024, I take this opportunity to provide a President’s Update on behalf of the membership and the Board of Directors.
Section Meetings
The 2024 USANZ Section Meetings successfully brought our regional members together with stimulating and innovative programs. Thanks to Damien Bolton and Prem Rashid, supported by Michael Nugara, in providing the Presidential update in the Sections where there was a timetable clash. We extend our sincere thanks to all attendees and organisers for their contributions.
Particular thanks must go to the Meeting Convenors for the vast work that goes into bringing the programs to fruition: Omid Yassaie and Rod Studd (Aotearoa New Zealand), Clair Whelan (New South Wales), Devang Desai (Northern), Matthew Hong (South Australia and Northern Territory), Anthony Eaton (Tasmania), George Mirmilstein (Victoria), and Isaac Thyer (Western Australia). Attendance at each meeting was excellent and the programs offered an opportunity to showcase the great academic work being forged by members with trainees, Pre SET doctors and medical students.
Increasing the range of CPD offerings beyond the ASM and Section meetings is an important element of the USANZ Strategic Plan. At the Aotearoa New Zealand meeting, Ashani Couchman led a Urodynamic workshop. Attendance included Urologists, trainees, local Urogynaecologists and Nurses. There were close to 200 attendees. Congratulations Ashani and thanks to Giovanni Losco and Hazel Ecclestone for their contributions.
UAA 2024
USANZ members were the largest cohort at the UAA meeting in Bali, in September. It was also the best attended UAA in the history of the organization.
Media Engagement
You can read our media release about overseas medical specialists and the MBA fast tracked accreditation proposal. RACS has modified its SIMG policies over the last 12 months to streamline substantially comparable SIMGs whilst ensuring their supervision is linked to colleagues via a Specialist Society and RACS.
In addition, USANZ Members have led public health campaigns about benign prostatic hyperplasia and erectile dysfunction, building on research by Boston Scientific. We thank the following Members for their contributions to these campaigns: James Aspinall, Borjana Barth, Amanda Chung, Devang Desai, Tony de Sousa, Jim Duthie, Alastair Hepburn, Phillip Katelaris, Giovanni Losco, Greg Malone, Daniel Marshall, Daniel Moon, Elayne Ooi, Patrick Preece, Joseph Schoeman, Kapil Sethi, Dan Spernat, Jeff Thavaseelan, John Tuckey, André Westenberg, Liam Wilson, and Henry Woo.
Our recent media releases have been amplified on social media, particularly LinkedIn, recognising USANZ as an authoritative voice on urological issues in Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand.
ANZUP
In November, USANZ joined ANZUP at the Best of GU Oncology Evening Symposium. The USANZ Speaker at this event was Manish Patel, who joined Dickon Hayne and myself as representatives of our Society. Manish provided an overview of muscle invasive bladder cancer management and improvements in outcome in recent years. He promoted to an almost exclusively Med Onc crowd the notion that it is good for BC research to identify a Urologist as Principal Investigator for future research. Manish is going to lead the Cystectomy audit on behalf of USANZ. Dickon provided an update on a prodigious number of clinical trials mainly improving outcomes for patients with NMIBC. Innovative studies included injections of chemotherapeutic agents into the bladder wall, a definitive and hard fought long-term study of Mitomycin C and BCG.
ANZUP is a forward looking collaborator that is successfully providing grants to many of our members.
CPD Event Partnerships
USANZ has recently partnered with several other associations to host important events.
On December 7, I facilitated a pilot Ambu-USANZ workshop on OAB Management with Flexible Cystoscopy and Botox Under Local Anaesthesia at the Epworth Simulation centre.
In early 2025, USANZ Members will participate in the Movember meetings about sexual health and wellbeing in prostate cancer care, as well as the Astellas GP educational series about OAB. Thank you to Sanjeev Bandi, Ross Calopedos, Eric Chung, Danielle Delaney, Anthony Kiosoglous, Stephanie Kotes, Dominic Lee, and Courtenay West who will represent the Society at these events.
Member Achievements
I would also like to celebrate USANZ Member Philip Tan, who was awarded a prestigious RACS Educator of Merit award for Supervisor of the Year in Tasmania.
In addition, USANZ Members have ably represented the Society at international urological conferences including KUA (Matthew Roberts), SLAUS (Rowan Hall), and SIU. Under Damien Bolton’s leadership the USANZ session at SIU was very successful. Over 60 USANZ members attended, which, given the fact we were also the largest national cohort at UAA Bali, demonstrates our significant role in Asia broadly.
We look forward to USANZ making further contributions to the global urological community in 2025 and beyond.
ASM in Perth
We are eagerly anticipating our Annual Scientific Meeting in Perth from 1–4 March 2025.
The ASM Committee including Convenor Shane La Bianca, Scientific Committee Chair Trenton Barrett and our staff have prepared an educational and engaging scientific program. I encourage all members to visit the ASM website to check out the full program. Early bird registrations close on 31 January 2025 so register now to secure the discounted rate.
Finally, as the year draws to a close, I would like to acknowledge the outstanding work performed by our Members in a voluntary capacity to provide training, CPD, high level advisory expertise, media engagement, governance for the Society’s committees, as well as excellent patient care to the communities we serve. Your training efforts are growing our future workforce and all of our own healthcare. Thanks also to the USANZ staff for their excellent support over the year.
Wishing you a wonderful festive season and every blessing for 2025.
Best wishes,
Prof Helen O'Connell AO
President, USANZ