Training is very important in all medical specialties, particularly in surgical branches. During the COVID-19 pandemic there was a very long gap in terms of surgical training, where almost all medical staff members served to take care of COVID-19 patients instead of receiving sufficient training. This situation draws attention to the importance of surgical training centers.

Figure 1. Dr A. Erdem Canda.

Figure 2. Robotic surgery training operating room, Rahmi M. Koç Academy of Interventional Medicine, Education, and Simulation.

Figure 3. Laparoscopy training center, Rahmi M. Koç Academy of Interventional Medicine, Education, and Simulation.

Figure 4. Cadaveric training center, Rahmi M. Koç Academy of Interventional Medicine, Education, and Simulation (RMK AIMES).

Figure 5. Laparoscopy training center, Rahmi M. Koç Academy of Interventional Medicine, Education, and Simulation.

Figure 6. Rahmi M. Koç Academy of Interventional Medicine, Education, and Simulation (RMK AIMES).

High technology is increasingly being used in all surgical specialties, and urology is probably the specialty where high tech surgical equipment, including robotics, laparoscopy, and endourology, is used at the highest level. Robotic surgery is the best example for this subject, which is increasingly being performed worldwide in the management of many urological diseases, including both malignant and benign conditions.

For patients, robotic surgery has the advantages of decreased blood loss and thus decreased blood transfusion requirements, fewer complications, decreased duration of hospital stay, smaller incisions, less analgesic requirement, and better cosmetic results. For the surgeon, it gives the advantages of operating in a comfortable sitting position with no need to wear sterile scrubs, using wristed robotic instruments with 3D magnified vision, using 4 robotic arms, using additional technologies such as 3D navigation images or indocyanine green (ICG) application, which eventually leads to a shorter learning curve.

The only relative disadvantage seems to be the increased cost, which might be much more lower than expected if the advantages listed above are included in cost calculations. Therefore, not only patients but also surgeons favor robotic procedures.

Currently, many new surgical robotic systems manufactured by different companies are available on the market with some differences in each system. We can clearly see that the younger generation is very much interested in learning robotic surgery rather than open surgery, and open surgery might be a subspeciality in the future. Therefore, we need to train our future generation not only in robotic surgery or surgical procedures but also in open surgery.

Istanbul is a beautiful city that serves as a bridge between Europe and Asia, where Rahmi M. Koç Academy of Interventional Medicine, Education, and Simulation (RMK AIMES) Surgical Training Center is located. RMK AIMES is located on the same campus with Koç University Hospital in Istanbul. It is a 5-floor building with a 6500-m² area. The ground floor is used for hands-on training courses. Other floors are mostly used as a convention center for symposiums, congresses, meetings, and lectures.

For urology courses RMK AIMES has the following equipment (Figures 1-6):

• Nine stations for laparoscopy training on porcine models under anesthesia equipped with laparoscopy towers (all 4K [ultrahigh definition] with ICG application)
• Nine laparoscopy training boxes that we use for EBLUS (European Training Program for Basic Laparoscopic Urology Skills) with all EBLUS materials
• Five pulsating organ perfusion trainers that we use for laparoscopy and robotic urology training on harvested animal kidneys with ICG application
• One da Vinci X Surgical Robotic System that is used for robotic urology courses on human fresh frozen cadavers, porcine models under anesthesia, cadaveric animal models, and 3D printed materials
• Two robotic simulators

In addition to the robotic urology courses, many laparoscopy and endourology courses including ureterorenoscopy, retrograde intrarenal surgery with laser application, and courses on holmium laser enucleation of the prostate, are organized. Lastly, open surgery courses, such as the emergency urology course, are organized by the faculty members of Koç University and Oxford University (UK), with offerings of lectures, video presentations, case discussions, and most importantly hands-on training on human fresh-frozen cadavers teaching open surgical emergency procedures to participants.

Due to being located on the same campus as Koç University Hospital, course participants could observe the surgical procedures following attending the courses at the RMK AIMES Training Center.

In the past, we welcomed our AUA member colleagues as faculty in our courses, and we will be welcoming many more in the future. Being an AUA international member and the director of our training center, I look forward to further collaboration with our AUA colleagues. For those colleagues visiting Istanbul, I would be more than happy to take them for a visit to our training center.