Figure. The second AUA Leadership Class with mentors in 2007.

As a graduate of the second Leadership Class in 2007, it is an honor to return to the program and serve as a mentor. The Leadership Class curriculum and interactions proved to be an important career building experience, which gave me a sense of direction as I navigated opportunities to become involved in organized urology. Mentors such as Brendan Fox, Sushil Lacey, Tony Schaeffer, Steve Schlossberg, and Paul Schellhammer provided remarkable advice and life lessons for both the academic and independent based urologists in our group. The program enlightened me as to the role the AUA plays in organized urology, the services it provides its members, and the many opportunities there are to become involved. Following completion of the Leadership Program, I was given the opportunity to participate at the committee level in public policy, which was an area of interest for me. This early involvement solidified my interest in public policy and led to 14 years of service to the AUA and its members, which I truly enjoyed.

The roster of new Leadership Class members is once again extremely impressive. As a mentor, my goal is to guide and challenge these talented individuals to work and learn from each other. One of the basic tenets of leadership is team building and collaboration, and the Leadership Program encourages this through social events, lectures, open discussion, and the Capstone project. Capstone projects are very popular in business school curriculum. They serve as a final exam or wrap-up of a class project which is designed to foster innovative solutions for everyday, relevant problems. Through my own experience in business school, I feel the Capstone project is an excellent way to create collaborative behavior and leadership development amongst the participants. The AUA leadership program’s Capstone project challenges the participants to (1) identify a deficiency/barrier in the delivery of urological care which impacts providers and/or their patients, and (2) develop solutions to address the specific deficiency/barrier in a meaningful and sustainable way. Subgroups of the Leadership Class work on their individual projects with the guidance of their respective mentors and the projects are graded and judged by AUA leadership on their creativity, approach to the issue, feasibility, cost analysis, and solution implementation. The winning projects will be recognized at next year’s AUA Advocacy Summit in Washington, DC.

In summary, I feel the AUA Leadership Program remains invaluable as a career development program to enrich and prepare the future leaders of our AUA and organized urology. I look forward to working with this talented group of people and I wish to share my successes and failures over the years with the hope to impart some of the wisdom that I was so fortunate to receive from my program mentors. I applaud the AUA for the continued support of this highly successful program.