The Society of Women in Urology (SWIU) continues to advance in our overall mission: to support, promote, and succeed as women in urology. Through a collection of several actions driven by the SWIU executive board and various task force committees, we continue to engage in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that support women in urology at the medical student, resident, and attending levels.

Within just the past few years, students have become an integral part of the SWIU community. The student subgroup, coined SWIUdents, hold a monthly webinar series that highlights a wide array of topics. Recently, these have ranged from preparation for residency interviews to individual experiences as a foreign medical graduate matching into a US residency program. Annually, SWIU also pairs female medical students applying for urology residency with a female resident or attending for personal statement review. This is a free service not only to improve residency applications, but also to form mentorships and connections with other women urologists early in their career. This year in particular, the Increasing DEI in Residency Recruitment Task Force expanded this effort through the creation of resources to reduce bias during the urology match process. This task force curated an openly available flyer for program directors on holistic review, outlining strategies for DEI improvement within recruitment beyond historically accepted norms (Figure 1).

To further promote women trainees, SWIU provides travel awards to both students and residents attending our annual mentoring conference, hosted each winter. These awards are sponsored by the AUA sections, women urologists, industry, and male allies around the US. Each award is given to women trainees who otherwise may lack the financial ability to attend the conference. This provides a tangible networking opportunity for trainees to gain lasting mentors that trainees may not otherwise have been exposed to. This past spring, the SWIU breakfast meeting at the AUA highlighted the importance of male allyship for success of women through recognition of ally donors to bolster the fundraising effort for these stipends. In addition, trainees have representation with national leadership committees. Three residents currently serve on the SWIU executive board (Figure 2). These residents engage in initiatives shaping the future of our organization while leading social media campaigns. This year, a goal of the residents was to increase cross-collaboration with women urologists beyond North America through #SWIUGlobalCommunity. This social media initiative highlights women urologists worldwide, including their clinical work, research, and personal interests in order to foster a sense of a global women in urology community with hopeful future partnerships.

Professional development through SWIU remains equally important for women attendings at both junior and senior levels. A task force employed 2 years ago focused on salary equity for women urologists. One tangible outcome from this group was the development of a templated maternal leave policy that women may use and adapt for their own contracts and hospital systems. Continued work from this group has led to several parental resources, including fertility, cryopreservation, pregnancy, parental leave, returning to work, and lactation, all free of cost. Last year, panel level exposure was provided to discuss these issues openly in a live format at our annual mentoring conference.

In keeping with conference level exposure, a need for increased female representation at urologic meetings is well demonstrated. A national speaker database was created by SWIU that contains a robust list of female urologists across subspecialties and geographic regions. This speaker list has been officially provided to the AUA and is updated annually. To even further representation of women urologists at meetings, a task force was specifically developed to create an SWIU program at the AUA Section meetings. This past year, we successfully had several Section events with emphasis on professional development and networking with AUA Section leaders. These increased efforts for representation have proudly culminated in a partnership with Urology, the “Gold Journal” as SWIU’s official journal. In every issue, a paper is published in the Women in Urology section highlighting work by women urologists with an overlying focus of gender equity in medicine. Work curated through this collaboration is additionally highlighted through our weekly social media campaign of #SWIUScholars.

The majority of these initiatives are freely available to the general urologic community, with only some restricted to SWIU members. This allows for anyone in urology, regardless of gender affiliation, to access resources regarding topics such as professional development, contract negotiations, parental resources, and more. As SWIU continues to expand with over 2,000 members and counting, novel efforts for DEI are generated rapidly and consistently (Table). We highly encourage urologists of all genders who support the mission of SWIU to reach out and get involved with our mission and organization.

Table. Active Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives, Task Forces, and Resources Available Through the Society of Women in Urology