It is with great gratitude and humility that I embark this year as a participant in the 2023-2024 AUA Leadership Class as one of the participants from the Mid-Atlantic Section. We were asked to reflect on thoughts upon receiving this honor, as well as skills and insights we hope to take away from this class.

Regarding thoughts on receiving this honor, I will get a little philosophical here for a bit. I am starting my 9th year as faculty and find it sometimes surreal how milestones which at one point seemed quite theoretical suddenly become real. For me, being an academic urologist, a surgeon-scientist, has been a blast. I enjoy the variety in my day-to-day ranging from relationships formed with patients, residents, colleagues, and students, the opportunity to perform surgery and participate in the care of those in need, to being empowered to have ideas on how to better understand and treat urological cancers, and then test and develop those theories, and engaging in organizational leadership in my own institution and with various professional organizations on a national scale, including the AUA. I enjoy being challenged with new endeavors and welcome the opportunity to continue developing myself. This is where the Leadership Class fits into my personal professional development. To me, the time felt right professionally to seek out this growth opportunity. While I have plenty of room to keep growing in my academic career clinically and in research, I also feel I have reached to some extent a meaningful level of development in these dimensions and am excited to focus on growth in this leadership facet of professional development. Thus, my thoughts on receiving this honor are that I do view it as a transition point into solidly a mid-career stage of life. While that makes me feel old as confirmed by the gray hairs on my face and being the father of kids who are impressing me with their ever-growing independence, I’m quite excited about making this transition!

Regarding skills and insights I hope to take away, there are 2 main areas of interest I have in mind. While medical school, residency, and fellowship train us well in how to treat patients and perform research, the skills of how to engage in institutional and organizational leadership were not as focused on. I think there’s a time and place for everything, and am not sure if leadership skills were the center of focus 10 years ago how much I would have benefited. Now, however, I feel ready and excited about engaging in this subject matter. Second, and most importantly for me, I’ve come to appreciate over the last 9 years as faculty that so much of what we do professionally is in the relationships we form. I’m extremely excited by the incredible caliber of colleagues that I’ll be with during this endeavor, both mentors and participants. The value of coming together with like-minded and energized individuals facing similar professional and life questions is invaluable. I’m thankful the AUA has brought us together and excited to engage in this class!