The Middleton visiting professorship was held on October 26^th with attendance of the entire Division of Urology as well as many other community urologists either in person or via a virtual option. It was an energizing experience and inspiring to hear Dr. Jay Smith’s lectures on interpreting the medical literature and mentorship. His insights into the publishing process were unparalleled given his long tenure as editor of the Journal of Urology. In his remarks about mentorship, everyone in attendance felt the power of his thoughts and experience. Dr. Smith was truly the best choice to honor Dr. Middleton, because of his close connection as a mentee and trainee of the chief.

Other highlights of the morning included updates on research from Dr. Heidi Hanson, PhD who talked about the complex molecular typing of bladder cancer, Dr. Alejandro Sanchez, MD who discussed his work on the relationship between obesity and renal cell cancer, as well as Dr. Shaeffer, MD, MS who discussed the beginning of a very rich exploration of the Utah Population Database and Spina Bifida outcomes. There were many other presentations that emphasized some of the research projects done by residents, other faculty, and finally some very interesting case presentations.

The Middleton VP will be a yearly event and is sure to continue as a great educational opportunity for the Division of Urology and the urologic community in the Intermountain West.

Drs. Stephen Summers and John Smith are codirecting a fellowship in Genitourinary medicine starting this December. The fellowship is designed to train a family practice or internist in non-operative office-based urology. The fellow will gain experience in all of the disciplines in urology, as well as an exposure to operative urology, with the purpose of being able to triage patients to operative urologists for common urologic conditions. The fellow will learn office-based skills, such as prostate biopsy, stent placement, vasectomy, and cystoscopy. Dr. Smith, the co-director of the fellowship has similar training in New York. He brought this expertise to designing the fellowship curriculum and structure. A new paradigm in urology, incorporating advanced practice providers and non-operative office-based genitourinary medicine specialists, may be a way to create a realistic two-tier system that could address the work force crisis we are facing in urologic care in this country.

>LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR GENITOURINARY FELLOWSHIP

Dr. Brock O’Neil has been named the director of the Value-Driven Healthcare Pathway for the University of Utah School of Medicine.

University of Utah is joining the System for Improving and Measuring Procedural Learning (SIMPL) network. SIMPL allows real time feedback directly after cases for trainees. It employs the Zwisch scale, which is a simplified rater system concentrated upon the trainees role in the operation. The scale has four categories of participation: (1) Show and Tell, (2) Active Help, (3) Passive Help, and (4) Supervision Only. In addition, the phone-based application allows attendings to record feedback that goes immediately to the resident about what they did well or what they need to improve upon. The SIMPL platform will be a small but important step towards intentional education in surgery residency and should allow trainees to improve their surgical skills quickly. In addition, it will encourage educators to think about what level of participation is appropriate for residents in individual cases.

Two recent RO1 grants have been funded in urology by the National Institutes of Health. The first entitled the ‘Genetics of Male infertility Initiative (GEMINI)’ will fund the work of co-PI, Dr. Ki Aston, PhD, in andrology, and is a continuation of an effort to better characterize genomics of men with infertility. The second RO1 is entitled the ‘Genomic approach to connecting elevated germline mutation with male infertility and somatic health (GEMS)’. The PI for this study is Dr. Jim Hotaling, MD, MS and it will continue his work on the link he discovered between familial somatic health and infertility.

The visiting professorship was attended by the entire division of urology and many community-based urologists. In order to continue the Middleton VP we are seeking to create an endowed fund. The VP will occur every year and promote the work being done at University of Utah, create an amazing educational venue, and honor the legacy of Dr. Richard G. Middleton.

Please consider donating to the fund so this fantastic educational endeavor can continue.

For more information on how you can support the Division of Urology and any other philanthropic questions you may have, please contact:

Kate Throneburg

Director of Advancement, Surgery