When I was first asked to write about what I learned from Dr Denstedt, I knew I had some research to do. Given the current worldwide obsession with superheroes, I had to learn as much as possible about Canadian superheroes. The 2 most widely recognized Canadian superheroes are Wolverine and Captain Canuck. Wolverine, the most popular X-Man of all time, has superhuman strength and reflexes, enhanced senses and tracking abilities, and a special healing power that slows his aging. Captain Canuck has superhuman speed and heightened durability. He also has an eidetic memory and can recall an image from memory with high precision. Although these abilities are impressive, these 2 Canadian superheroes pale in comparison to Dr Denstedt.

As the AUA Secretary, Dr Denstedt did battle against our worldwide nemesis, COVID-19. In 2020, COVID-19 defeated the AUA and forced the cancellation of the Annual Meeting in Washington DC. Dr Denstedt and his talented team rallied to have the 2021 Annual Meeting in Las Vegas. Everything was set to go when COVID-19 once again challenged our superhero. The situation appeared dire, but Dr Denstedt rose to the challenge and helped produce the first-ever virtual AUA Meeting. By all metrics it was a momentous success. Finally, Dr Denstedt prevailed over COVID-19, with the return of a highly anticipated in-person meeting in New Orleans in 2022.

Dr Denstedt’s travel schedule as AUA Secretary is also legendary. He would fly across the globe to help promote the fantastic work of the AUA and collaborate with our international partners.

He was known to fly to multiple countries in a single week. As such, the AUA now has 2 Assistant Secretaries, one for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and one for the Americas and the Caribbean. No one person can match the superhuman powers of Dr Denstedt.

As the Editor of AUANews, Dr Denstedt tripled the content of the publication in only 2 years. He also doubled the number of issues of AUANews per year from 12 to 24. His powers are so great that a new position for the Editor of AUANews was created since one regular person cannot do all this work alone. He has also worked with the Editors of the 3 journals, The Journal of Urology^®, Urology Practice^®, and JU Open Plus, to create a strong pipeline between the AUA’s scholarly publications.

Finally, like most superheroes, Dr Denstedt is mild mannered and soft-spoken, personality traits that disguise his true superpowers. He is dedicated to his wife and 2 talented daughters. He also has a superpowerful cat. But that is a different story.