Each year when I sit down to write my December “Reflections” article for AUANews, I am reminded of how fortunate I am to work in urology and with such talented, passionate individuals. As we continue to adjust to a post-COVID world and realign our strategies to best meet the needs of our ever-changing environment, I am in awe at the accomplishments we were able to achieve through the endless commitment of our volunteers and staff.

2023 had no shortage of impressive achievements—including hitting new milestones and launching new initiatives. As a global organization, our members form the heart and soul of our endeavors. In 2023, the AUA welcomed a record number of 3107 new members, bringing our footprint to over 25,000 members. Further, we experienced a record-breaking year for the 2023 Urology Residency Match, resulting in 383 vacancies filled with a 75% match rate.

This year we also released 2 new guidelines (“Diagnosis and Management of Non-Metastatic Upper Tract Urothelial Carcinoma” and “Early Detection of Prostate Cancer”) and amended 5 existing guidelines (“Management of Lower Urinary Tract Symptoms Attributed to Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia,” “Diagnosis and Treatment of Early-Stage Testicular Cancer,” “Surgical Treatment of Female Stress Urinary Incontinence (SUI),” “Advanced Prostate Cancer,” and “Urethral Stricture Disease”).

For the second year since the pandemic, we hosted an in-person/hybrid Annual Meeting in Chicago with over 13,500 people from all over the world. It was impressive to see the growth of the conference since last year, hear about connections made, and see industry-changing research being presented. We were pleased to host our inaugural FUTURE (Future Urology Talent From Under-Represented Entities) Program at this year’s Annual Meeting where 40 URiM (underrepresented in medicine) medical students and 50 physicians were paired to explore the conference together, attend meetings, build relationships, and discuss opportunities for these bright medical students to consider a career in urology (Figure 1).

Figure 1. FUTURE (Future Urology Talent from Under-Represented Entities) Program attendees at AUA2023 in Chicago.

At this year’s Annual Meeting we also launched the inaugural Global Residents Leadership Retreat. It featured a total of 38 resident participants, encompassing representation from every AUA Section (including Canada and Mexico), along with attendees hailing from countries such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Peru, Spain, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

The day before the Annual Meeting, we held our first Innovation Nexus Conference—Igniting Discovery—with nearly 300 attendees (Figure 2). The event featured 10 showcases of the most exciting startups in urology presenting their innovations. The event also included industry leaders talking about what real-world problems they are trying to solve and discussion forums on thought-provoking topics like the state of innovation in urology and provided networking opportunities to help build connections needed to move concepts to the next level of innovation and implementation. The Innovation Nexus Conference was followed up by our Innovation Boot Camp, which occurred in September. This was an intimate event that helped innovators workshop their ideas, get mentoring sessions with established innovators, and jump-start their business strategies.

Figure 2. AUA’s first Innovation Nexus Conference—Igniting Discovery.

In February, we held an in-person AUA Advocacy Summit with 260 attendees, including over a dozen patient advocates and more than 65 medical students, residents, and fellows (Figure 3). Attendees held nearly 200 meaningful conversations with members of Congress and their staff, focusing on advocating to ease the specialty physician workforce shortage, making telehealth expansion permanent, reducing barriers to PSA testing, and reforming the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule. This was our first year back in the halls of Congress and attendees’ feedback reflected how valuable it was to show up in person and advocate.

Figure 3. AUA Advocacy Summit attendees on Capitol Hill.

The AUA’s advocacy work did not stop with the Summit. We are actively engaged year-round in ensuring the voice of urology is heard when key decisions are being made.

The voice of patients is also important in the work we do. The AUA convenes 3 patient advocacy alliances, bringing together stakeholders around prostate cancer, kidney cancer, and bladder health conditions: the Prostate Cancer Impact Alliance, the Kidney Cancer Impact Alliance, and the Bladder Health Alliance. Each meets regularly to organize and advance the interests of patients within the disease area of focus and hosts an annual in-person meeting.

The AQUA (AUA Quality) Registry continued with yet another successful year. Now in its eighth consecutive year as a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services–designated Qualified Clinical Data Registry, more than 2200 providers from across 41 states are enrolled and 10,800,000 patients are represented in the data results. Developed by urologists for urologists, AQUA continues to be a leading registry for urological data.

Our publications had a big year. We were tremendously excited to launch our newest peer-reviewed journal, the Gold Open Access JU Open Plus, in January 2023, and we learned Urology Practice^® was indexed by MEDLINE. As a result, all content published since the very first issue in 2014 is now indexed in the National Library of Medicine bibliographic database. The Journal of Urology^® also launched a new Pathway to Publication initiative showcasing AUA2023’s top abstracts. Authors of the top-rated abstracts across all categories were invited to submit full-length research articles on an accelerated peer review timeline. Accepted papers were published simultaneously at the time of abstract presentation.

This was also the first full year for the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee’s podcast Voices. With an episode releasing every month, this podcast series delves into critical DEI topics. It features leaders in the DEI space like Dr Larissa Bresler, Dr Denise Asafu-Adjei, and TLC star Dr Fenwa Milhouse, and covers the broad spectrum of DEI. I encourage you to listen if you haven’t had a chance (AUANews.net/DownBelow). Also, check out the “Voices” articles (AUANews.net/Voices) that appear monthly in AUANews as well as the AUANews Diversity issue (AUANews.net/DEI2023).

Associations aspire to change the world for the better. I firmly believe we do that at the AUA. It is a privilege to serve an organization that makes such a difference in the lives of patients every day. It is an honor to work side by side with the incredibly talented AUA staff and the hundreds of volunteers that give their time to the urologic community through the AUA. None of these accomplishments would be possible without you; thank you for your dedication.