CUA Annual Meeting Research Articles

PEI 2010: CUA NEWS Save the date!

Allow me to brag a little about the next CUA Annual Meeting. CUA’s 65th Annual Meeting will be held in beautiful Charlottetown, PEI. The local organizing committee and I are pretty excited that PEI is hosting this CUA meeting for the first time! We’re proud to state that PEI is the birthplace of Canada—over 140 years ago, in 1864 to be exact, elected officials met in PEI to discuss the idea of creating a country. This historic event was the catalyst to the founding of Canada. Come and explore this wonderful and historically rich part of Canada! If you haven’t attended a CUA Annual Meeting yet, make this your first! If you’ve already attended meetings in the past, be sure to save the date for next year’s meeting—June 27–30, 2010. Many of us are planning our family holidays in PEI to coincide with the meeting. Our scientific program promises to be intellectually stimulating and enriching. The program, chaired by Dr. Ricardo Rendon, will feature state-of-the-art lectures from key opinion leaders in urology, Educational Fora addressing a wide spectrum of the most compelling issues and controversies in urology, and an abstract-driven session showcasing the most cutting-edge research being done in Canada today. Michael Mulligan and Ian Reid, along with the rest of the local organizing committee, have been working hard to make sure the social program is exciting and exhilarating. In a nutshell, the CUA’s agenda is as follows: The Scientific Program will begin Sunday morning. Sunday night is the Welcome reception—an opportunity to meet up with old friends and make dinner plans. Take this evening to settle into our gorgeous headquarter hotel, the Delta Prince Edward, and prepare for the two full days of science ahead. On Monday, after the sessions, unwind at the CUA Fun Night. Here, you’ll feel right at home as you experience true Maritime hospitality with friends and colleagues. On Tuesday evening, join us for the traditional President’s Banquet. The CUA 2010 abstract submission deadline for oral, poster and video presentations is January 15, 2010. The online submission site will be operational in late fall 2009 at www.cuameeting.org. For any questions concerning abstract submissions, please contact the Scientific Program office atgro.auc@tcartsba. If you have any questions about the meeting or about the CUA, feel free to contact me. I hope to see you there!

CUA 2011 in Montreal

Preparations are well underway for the 2011 CUA Annual Meeting in Montreal from June 19–21, 2011. I want to use this opportunity in CUAJ to give you some details about the meeting and to encourage you to attend. The conference hotel is the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel, in the heart of the city. Armen Aprikian, the Scientific Program chair, and his team promise to deliver an outstanding program with a stellar cast of speakers, which include W. Marston Linehan from the National Cancer Institute in Maryland, and Peter Scardino from the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center for oncology; Chris Chapple from Sheffield, UK for voiding dysfunction; and Christopher Cooper from the University of Iowa for pediatric urology. The online submission site will be ready on October 15, 2010. We invite you to submit your abstracts online; the deadline is January 14, 2011. The meeting website will be up early, so you can complete all of your arrangements well in advance. For the Fun Night (on June 20, 2011), our Local Organizing Committee, headed by Serge Carrier and Francois Benard, has selected the Marche Bonsecours in Old Montreal. The Marche is one of Canada’s 10 finest heritage buildings. Guests will enter the main ballroom and will be able to pick from the various cultural foods of some of Montreal’s famous restaurants all under one roof! The final social event will be the President’s Reception (on June 21, 2011) held in Le Grand Salon at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth. Our host for this evening is Chefs and Chef – a “food entertainment” company that will introduce your palate to the different typical community dishes that are part of Montreal’s cultural mosaic. Save the dates and come to Montreal for CUA’s 2011 Annual Meeting!

We are entering a new era in the cua!

We are entering a new era in the CUA! We are pleased to announce the appointment of our new Executive Director, Ms. Andree Belanger. She has extensive experience in senior management and in working with non-profit organizations. She hails from Drummondville, Quebec, yet her life has brought her to many parts of the world, including the Philippines. She has over 20 years management experience at the Director and Executive Director levels, mainly in the education and not-for-profit sectors in Canada and abroad. Her experience is exactly what we need at the CUA to continue to grow the association. Her extensive experience in strategic planning, marketing, networking, program development and project management make her a perfect fit. She also has experience in dealing with provincial ministries and organizations in the pharmaceutical sector in Quebec through her involvement with the West Island of Montreal Chamber of Commerce, the Parkinson Society Quebec and the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Her diversified experience will certainly be a strong asset for the CUA. Working closely with the existing CUA team, she will ensure that all our divisions are working efficiently. You will get a chance to meet her at the CUA Annual Meeting in Charlottetown! Join me in welcoming her to the CUA — welcome Andree!

Next year – Montréal!

I would like to begin my first instalment with a big thank you to Dr. Jerzy Gajewski and his team for a wonderful CUA Annual Meeting in PEI. Thanks to Ian Reid and Mike Mulligan, we enjoyed tantalizing social events with Chef Michael Smith. Ricardo Rendon, along with his team, prepared an intellectually stimulating scientific program. Next year, our 66th Annual Meeting is heading to la belle province – in the energetic city of Montreal! Our host hotel is the Fairmont Queen Elisabeth Hotel – in the heart of the city. As Canada’s second largest city, Montreal is certainly proud of its French and European heritage. As President of the CUA, I would like to personally invite you to join us from June 19–21, 2011 and help continue the tradition of making the CUA Annual Meeting our most successful educational event of the year. This is an exciting time for the CUA. This fall we will see the emergence of an independent organization with a new director, Andree Belanger who, with Denis Lavoie and Stewart Oake and the excellent CUA staff, will help channel the organization forward. The OE under the guidance of Peter Anderson will continue to grow and become even more successful. Over the next year we hope to see more developments from the strategic planning document come to fruition. Dr. Gajewski, thank you for passing the torch to me. I take this position, as CUA President, seriously and will do my best to serve CUA members and the growing urological community.

The improved CUA Office of Education

The CUA has taken a major initiative in establishing the Office of Education. This is an important step forward and offers an opportunity for enhanced medical education in a number of ways. The office acts as a conference organizer. To this end, it plans and implements continuing medical education events. As an accredited provider of continuing professional development activities for specialists, the CUA Office of Education provides advice and guidance to conference organizers who wish to put on a meeting that satisfies the criteria for section 1 (group learning event) and section 3 (self-assessment program) activities. These criteria, as defined by the Royal College, are quite rigorous, but achievable. The office can also organize activities for section 4 (structured learning projects, such as workshops and courses). A good example of section 4 is the recent Pediatric Laparoscopic Surgery course. An important benefit of the structure of the office is that, since meetings organized by the office are considered an extension of the association, federal and provincial taxes are not applicable to the management fees. This represents a significant cost savings for any member looking to put on a meeting. The office organized 4 accredited satellite symposia at the CUA Annual Meeting in Edmonton, sponsored by Merck Frosst, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer HealthCare and sanofi-aventis. A highlight of the Office of Education was its recent symposium in Edmonton entitled “What the urologist needs to know about clinical trials: an overview,” chaired by Dr. Luis Guerra. This popular symposium attracted over 100 participants. Feedback for all symposia were consistently positive. The office also organized 2 other meetings: the Canadian Senior Urology Residents program and a course on techniques in pediatric laparoscopic surgery, chaired by Dr. Walid Farhat and Dr. Darcie Kiddoo. The office is developing under the careful guidance of Peter Anderson, the vice-president of Education. Over the last year, the office has gone through some growing pains, including a change of leadership. In spite of this, it now has a compelling record of success. We encourage those of you who are planning conferences to contact the office, whether to organize your meeting or to obtain accreditation. The new director of the Office of Education, Ms. Tiffany Pizioli, MBA, will be happy to walk you through the process. She has moved from the central office of the SIU/CUA to become a full-time CUA employee. She is a bundle of energy and competence. I am confident that she is the right person to make the Office of Education a source of pride and excellence for our association. Ms. Pizioli can be reached at gro.auc@iloizip.ynaffit. The development of the Office of Education reflects the maturation and growth of our organization from a volunteer-run association, whose main task was putting on the annual meeting, to one that is professionally managed and that works year-round in the interests of our urology community and our patients.

Quantifying CUA’s progress

As CUA President, I am pleased to be able to report on some updates stemming from the CUA Strategic Plan. We have established 7 task forces to meet the goals set out in the Plan. Develop and implement an education business plan that will meet the life-long needs of members and contribute to overall CUA revenue Develop and implement an advocacy business plan that will position the CUA as the voice of matters urological in Canada Develop and implement a publishing business plan that will support the CUA’s education and advocacy initiatives and contribute to overall CUA revenue Develop and implement a practice support business plan that will be of value to the membership Develop and implement a member engagement/value strategy Develop a sustainable funding base, working with current partners to identify a broader range of revenue options Design and implement the appropriate organizational model We have delineated a timeline for each of these 7 items. Chairs and members have been selected. The updates were presented at Winter Executive Meeting with the plan to present the first-year progress to CUA members at Annual General Meeting this summer in Charlottetown on Tuesday, June 26 at noon. On a related note, the results of our 2009 survey have been released. This data will help us understand the needs of our members and will allow us to develop a more valuable benefit package. As the data suggests (see Fig. 1), the patient brochures and the CUA Annual Meeting tie as the most valuable benefits for members. Close in second is our journal, CUAJ. These results are encouraging and helpful in knowing that CUA is on the right track in its services to members. Fig. 1. Data based on the CUA 2009 member survey. Another recent CUA initiative contributing to improving societal health is the urologic information site – uroinfo.ca (www.uroinfo.ca). This site is becoming the “go-to” place for patients. The information on this site is written by CUA members. The goal of the site is to be the source of honest and balanced information about urology. The site is open to the general public, patients and their family members. The CUA Executive is continuing to restructure the Central Office with the goal of using our resources more effectively and efficiently. We will keep you informed on changes as they happen – stay tuned to the CUA Newsletter and the CUAJ for any updates. We will continue to do our best to serve our members. We welcome your feedback! I encourage you to attend our Annual General Meeting and to get involved in the association – your association! Let me end this report by inviting you to join us in Charlottetown for our first-ever Annual Meeting in Prince Edward Island! Dr. Michael Mulligan and Ian Reid, along with the rest of the local organizing committee, have been working hard to make sure that every attendee will enjoy the social program. The scientific program, chaired by Dr. Ricardo Rendon, will feature state-of the-art lectures from key opinion leaders in urology, educational fora addressing a wide spectrum of the most compelling issues and controversies in urology, and abstract-driven session showcasing the most cutting-edge research being done in Canada today. For more information and to register online, visit www.cuameeting.org.

Westward bound for the next CUA Annual Meeting!

Westward bound for the next CUA Annual Meeting!

CUA Annual Meeting Abstracts addition.

Foley catheters are assumed to drain the bladder to completion. We have previously shown that dependent loops along the drainage tubing create air-locks, which obstruct antegrade urine flow and result in un-drained residual bladder urine. We hypothesized that drainage characteristics of Foley catheters remain poorly understood by urologists and general surgeons. We conducted a nationwide survey of general surgery and urology training program faculty and residents, to assess perceptions of Foley catheter drainage. We designed a novel catheter drainage tube/bag that eliminates air-locks. An anonymous illustrated questionnaire assessing Foley catheter use patterns and perception was sent to general surgery and urology residency programs (N=108) nationwide. A modified catheter drainage tube/bag unit was designed and tested. An ex vivo catheterized bladder model was designed to measure and compare urine drainage rates with the standard drainage system, versus with our novel design. A total of 307 responses were collected from residents (55%) and faculty (45%); responses were similar among both groups (p<0.05). The majority reported that at their centers Foley catheter drainage tubes are generally positioned with a dependent loop (94.1%), and, that positioning with a dependent loop, versus without (78.1%) promoted optimal drainage. Antegrade drainage does not occur with a traditional drainage system when a >5.5 inch dependent loop in place. With our proposed design, which eliminates dependent loops, the bladder model emptied to completion consistently. Traditional Foley catheter drainage systems, as commonly used, evacuate the bladder sub- optimally. More reliable and complete bladder drainage may decrease the incidence of catheter related UTI. The novel modified Foley catheter drainage tube/bag design presented here eliminates dependent loops, to optimize antegrade drainage.

Westward bound for the next CUA NEWS CUA Annual Meeting!

Westward bound for the next CUA NEWS CUA Annual Meeting!

Westward bound for the next CUA Annual Meeting!

First and foremost, I would like to thank CUA members, Executives and Past-President Dr. Sender Herschorn for entrusting me with the position of CUA President. I have big shoes to fill and am ready to serve members! This year our Annual Meeting was held in Montreal – the meeting was a success, with strong scientific content and a robust social program! Next year, I am honoured to host the 67th Annual CUA Meeting in Banff, Alberta. On June 24–26, 2012, please join us at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel for what will be the complete “package” of a meeting. The local organizing co-chairs Dr. Marty Duffy and Dr. Howard Evans throw a party like nobody else! Dr. Jay Lee and Dr. Trevor Schuler will put together a superb scientific meeting that will match the spectacular ambience of Banff National Park. Our special guest speakers will include dynamic experts in urology and other fields, such as Drs. CK Yeung, Mark Moyad, Jerry Jordan, Tony Zietman, Mark Soloway and Richard Satava. Please block off the week, bring your family and make it a vacation that you will never forget! We look forward to seeing all of you in Banff in June 2012. Abstract Submission Deadline: Friday, January 13, 2012

Putting a face to a name: introducing CUA Staff

CUA has had some challenging months, but we are very pleased with our staff and appreciate the loyalty they show toward the Association! I would like to introduce them to you: GiGi Nguyen is the Coordinator of Member Services & Finances. She is responsible for the accounting and financial aspects of CUA, as well as the membership dues and database. She works with Treasurer, Dr. Stuart Oake. She can be reached at gro.auc@neyugn.gnoudh. Nadia Pace is Project Manager in the Office of Education. With Tiffany’s direction, she meticulously manages meetings for the Office of Education (OE), notably the Kidney Cancer Forum and the ever-popular CSUR meeting as well as the annual laparoscopy courses given prior to the Annual Meeting. She also serves as Industry Liaison and supervises all communications with CUA Annual Meeting exhibitors, as well as handles all requests related to the exhibits. Her email address is gro.auc@ecap.aidan. Tiffany Pizioli has been Director of the Office of Education since June 2008. She has created many ground-breaking opportunities with Industry and as a result: the OE thrives financially. Under the direction of the VP Education, Dr. Peter Anderson, she oversees all projects in the OE and works closely with key members of the CUA to better serve their educational needs. She also manages the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities with Dr. Francois Benard, Chair of the CPD Committee. Since Fall 2010, she has become the point person for the Annual Meeting in that she presides over the budget and all logistical aspects of the meeting. She is currently the interim Corporate Office Manager. You can contact her at tiffany. gro.auc@iloizip. Josephine Sciortino is the Editorial Director for CUAJ. She and Dr. Laurence Klotz established CUAJ in 2007. The journal now publishes bi-monthly in its print edition, with early online releases every alternate month at www.cuaj.ca. She manages the complete function of the journal, including author correspondence, editing and website management. In 2009, CUAJ became indexed with Thomson Scientific and has earned an initial impact factor of 0.875. Josephine also edits the CUA Newsletter and manages its coordination. Email her at gro.auc@onitroics.enihpesoj.