Reading through the names of past AUA Leadership Program graduates is perhaps the best testament to the program’s resounding success. The Leadership Program class lists abound with accomplished leaders in urology, including numerous department chairpersons, AUA governance and committee members, academic innovators, and health policy authorities. Now in its tenth Leadership Class, with 191 graduates to date, the biennial AUA Leadership Program continues to serve its mission of cultivating the AUA leaders of the future. The Leadership Program selects participants from each AUA section who are 15 years or less out of training and have demonstrated leadership skills, and provides a yearlong program comprising mentorship, networking, and leadership training. Throughout the program, participants work in small groups on a Capstone project to address an important problem or unmet need in urology, guided by program mentors who provide expertise and perspective.

Given all that the AUA Leadership Program offers, it was therefore a tremendous honor to be selected for the 2023-2024 Class from the New England Section. The AUA and the AUA sections have long served a critical role in supporting urology trainees, providers, and patients. However, this role has only increased in importance over recent years, as the challenges facing urology—and health care more broadly—have intensified, further accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic. There are many examples of how the AUA and its sections provide critical educational, research, and advocacy resources to advance the field of urology and adapt to a changing health care landscape. In the years since the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of these roles has only intensified. We have witnessed dramatic paradigm shifts in the delivery of health care with the rapid dissemination of telehealth, increasing rates of physician burnout, large reductions in the provider workforce during the pandemic, dynamic health policy changes, and rapid technological advances, such as artificial intelligence, which have the potential to disrupt the traditional practice of medicine.

In a time of unprecedented change in health care, there exists a unique opportunity to develop innovative solutions to address current and future challenges. In this regard, the AUA Leadership Program could not be more prescient. By providing leadership skills, mentorship, and network opportunities through its programmatic elements, coupled with a Capstone project that facilitates applied learning to a current problem in urology, the AUA Leadership Program prepares participants to address these challenges. The AUA engagement and advocacy components of the program are particularly important in today’s world. By facilitating engagement with both AUA leadership as well as the annual Urology Advocacy Summit in Washington DC, the Leadership Program provides network infrastructure to engage diverse stakeholders, including providers, patients, advocacy groups, industry, and government, which is essential to creating disruptive solutions to current health care challenges.

Just as the AUA Leadership Program has prepared past graduates to become leaders in clinical care, research, education, and health policy over the last 20 years, it provides training and resources to prepare future leaders to address the current and future problems in urology. Despite all of the challenges, we are in the midst of an exciting time in health care, with many opportunities to ultimately improve the lives of urology patients, trainees, and providers.