Over the last few decades, the Libyan medical colleges grew from 2 colleges in the largest cities in the public sector to 15 colleges across the country. After graduation, medical residents should continue doctoral studies locally as urologists at the Libyan Board for Medical Specialties and/or Arab Board of Medical Specialities. According to the Libyan Board for Medical Specialties, there were 33 newly certified urologists between 1995 and 2017. In total, there are about 140 Libyan urologists (consultants, specialists, and residents). Some Libyan urologists are members of urological societies like the AUA, the European Association of Urology, and the Société Internationale d’Urologie.

With continual training on new procedures and the availability of new technology in the country, urology practice has dramatically improved in the last years. We are doing most of the open urological surgeries, all endourological surgeries, and some laparoscopic surgery.

Here, we will give a brief overview about the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Misurata as an example from Libya, which belongs to the public health sector of the Libyan ministry and is titled as a highly specialized cancer care center, and is located in the third largest city of Libya, which is Misurata. It was established on September 19, 2004, and provides its services free of charge for about 21% of the Libyan population, those located in the midland region of the country (Figure 1). Still, the NCI Misurata offers its daily services for outpatients and inpatients from all over the country, and especially cancer patients through 350 clinical beds, which are distributed within 23 medical and administrative departments, and there are 897 staff members, including medical and nonmedical employees.

Figure 1. National Cancer Institute Misurata, Libya.

NCI Misurata is an academic university hospital and a training center for undergraduate and postgraduate doctors, and is an official training and examining center for the Libyan Board and Arab Board of Urology.

The diagnostic services of NCI Misurata include a fully equipped laboratory that contains a hematology unit, biochemistry unit, microbiology unit, and blood bank units. Also, there is a highly equipped histopathology department. In addition, there is a nicely equipped radiology department, consisting of an ultrasound unit, conventional radiology unit, CT scan, and multiparametric MRI for diagnosis and taking biopsies, while the therapeutic services of NCI Misurata are offered by the medical oncology department and radiotherapy department. It is also an intensive care unit for critically ill medical and surgical patients and for some postoperative cases. For palliative and supportive care services, we offer the pain treatment clinic, nutritional supporting unit, and many other essential medical specialties for these kinds of situations.

Regarding the urological services, our institute has a well-equipped operation theater with all needed instruments for all major open surgeries like radical nephrectomy, radical nephroureterectomy, radical prostatectomy, and radical cystectomy, besides a complete endourology unit for all procedures (transurethral resection of the prostate and transurethral resection of bladder tumor, ureteroscopy, flexible ureteroscopy, and percutaneous nephrolithotomy) and a laparoscopy unit for laparoscopic surgeries (Figure 2).

At NCI Misurata, there is a weekly multidisciplinary meeting to discuss the workup to offer a better medical management for each oncology case (Figure 3). Despite the complex situations in Libya, we are trying our best to improve our daily urological practice through continuous medical education activities like webinars and courses, and by attending international urological conferences and activities. In addition, we are following the AUA and European Association of Urology guidelines in our daily work.

Our institute has a hospital-based cancer registry that includes 11,440 newly registered cancer cases, and the urological cancer cases account for 9.3% of all cancer cases between 2004 and 2021. Additionally, the office of the midland cancer registry is located at our institute, too, which is a population-based cancer registry electronically linked to the entire national cancer registry system.

The NCI Misurata owns a big medical library unit, with some electronically equipped lecture rooms and a large main hall that are ready for any needed activity. We are part of a lot of scientific activities, and a part of many medical and urological webinars at the national and international levels. As an example, we held a national course on percutaneous nephrolithotomy in 2014, and the 1st Libyan Multidisciplinary Conference on Urological Cancers 2022 with the collaboration of many international societies, including the AUA (Figure 4).

Finally, we belong to the Libyan Urological Association, which was founded in 1989. The Libyan Urological Association holds an annual urology conference, the most recent of which was held in Tripoli in November 2022 (Figure 5).

We are improving our urology practice to improve patient care.