For the last 20 years, IVUmed has worked in low-resource areas with the mission to make quality urological care accessible worldwide. Through onsite surgical workshops centered on a teach-the-teacher approach, the work of IVUmed has transitioned from refining how to deliver surgical education in low-resource settings to supporting the establishment of regional training programs that are sustainable and meet the needs of local medical providers and patients. With an initial focus on pediatric urological care, the services of IVUmed have gradually adapted to meet several site-specific needs across multiple urological subspecialties. In our work presented at the AUA2022 Annual Meeting, we sought to quantify and characterize the volume and scope of the IVUmed mission over the course of this organization’s history.

To accomplish this aim, we conducted a retrospective review of IVUmed service records from 2000 to 2022. Important considerations included workshop date and geographic location, site information, clinic and surgical volume, training focus, personnel involvement, and number of volunteer hours served.

Since 2000, IVUmed has led 292 workshops in 39 countries across 4 continents (Fig. 1). Collectively, 104,805 hours were volunteered by 3,024 doctors, 1,068 nurses, 104 residents, and 559 other volunteers toward the service of 11,297 patients and the completion of 7,540 surgeries. A total of 211 unique individuals have served as team leaders, with 45 individuals serving this role more than once. From 2000-2005 to 2015-2020, the volume in number of surgeries grew almost fourfold. Over this same time, the workshop focus had also diversified, with a notable transition from predominantly pediatrics to more recently 30% pediatrics, 29% reconstruction, 12% oncology, and 8% female (Fig. 2). We also noted the introduction of workshops utilizing technology-driven specialties, such as endourology and laparoscopy.

Figure 1. Location of IVUmed sites 2000–2022.

Over the last 2 decades, the volume and scope of services provided by IVUmed have significantly expanded to meet the ever-increasing and diversifying needs of partners across IVUmed sites. The abrupt disruption to in-person workshops caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic lies in stark contrast to the prior growth led by the organization. Though the impact of losing 2 years of in-person work is immeasurable, the pandemic presented the opportunity to develop and expand virtual programming to engage global partners and sustain the work of IVUmed during this time of global isolation. Through the virtual education and training platform, IVUmed has engaged over 1,700 participants by way of Virtual Visiting Professor Lectures in topics across all urological specialties. The organization has also established Global Research Mentorship Partnerships in Uganda, St. Lucia, Zimbabwe, and Ethiopia, and has engaged with new program sites in Burundi, Ethiopia, and Somalia.¹ Now that in-person workshops can resume, the organization is returning to a hybrid model leveraging both physical and virtual teaching to support our partners and strengthen our impact.

Figure 2. Training focus over time.

Our future aims will be to evaluate the impact of both IVUmed in-person and virtual learning experiences, focusing on long-term outcomes and the sustained effect at partner sites to better define strategies for continued expansion of access to urological care worldwide.