Over the last several years, the Urology Care Foundation has expanded our efforts to improve urologic care globally and to aid in the resolution of health care equity worldwide. We’re raising our global voice to make a difference in the lives of urologic patients everywhere. The following are some examples of our global impact.

Website

It is our belief that all patients need to be well informed in order to be involved in making health care decisions. Gaining information is one step in elevating health care and resolving health care disparities.

In 2023, we had more than 14 million page views of our website, urologyhealth.org, providing access to more than 800 pieces of physician-led patient education for patients, caregivers, and health care providers. This collection remains the single-largest library of urology-specific patient education in the world. Not surprisingly, the country with the most visitors to our website is the United States, followed by the United Kingdom, India, Canada, Australia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, South Africa, and Ireland.

But perhaps even more importantly, we are reaching out to patients who may not otherwise have access to excellent health care information. We offer patient education pieces in 11 languages, including Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, English, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Punjabi, Spanish, Urdu, and Vietnamese. These translations account for about 40% of our total patient education materials and are produced with cultural sensitivities to unique audiences. The top 3 most-downloaded languages in 2023 were Spanish, Urdu, and Hindi.

Thanks to these translated materials, we reach patients from around the world.

Visit the Educational Resources section of our website to view all our patient and caregiver materials.

Humanitarian Grants

The Urology Care Foundation’s Humanitarian Grant Program supports individuals and organizations promoting the health of urology patients and communities in underserved areas, either in the United States or internationally, by providing direct care, enhancing access, or engaging them through educational efforts. Five of the 7 grant recipients in 2023 are completing projects internationally:

• Lee Ann Richter, MD: Dr Richter serves on the medical advisory board of the International Organization for Women and Development, with whom she travels each year to Rwanda for a 2-week medical mission evaluating and operating to repair fistula.
• Samit Sunny Roy, MD, MSPH: Dr Roy has visited the Sadhbhavna Trust Hospital, Kalsar, Bhavnagar, in Mahua, Gujarat, India, to provide training in routine and complex urologic surgery and postoperative care.
• Rajiv K. Singal, MD, FRCSC: Thanks to Dr Singal’s help with the Malawi Medical Council and the College of Surgeons of Eastern Central and Southern Africa, a Malawian urologist has been trained to help provide a long-term sustainable solution to the lack of urologic care in the country.
• Suzette Sutherland, MD: Dr Sutherland travels regularly to Dakar, Senegal, where she provides education and training in women’s pelvic and genitourinary health. Her fall 2023 trip with IVUmed was dedicated to the evaluation of stress urinary incontinence with an emphasis on minimally invasive and low-risk surgical treatment options.
• Dana Weiss, MD: Dr Weiss travels each year to the Civil Hospital Amdavad in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India. Her work and the project that is going into its 17th year have provided direct care to one of the largest groups of patients in the world affected by bladder exstrophy.

The two remaining grant projects also focus on access to care, though they are focused on the United States:

• Kymora Scotland, MD: Dr Scotland is partnering with Gold Standard Urology to provide urologic screening events that bring the medical community directly to patients in south Los Angeles, with a focus on prostate cancer, incontinence, nephrolithiasis, and erectile dysfunction.
• Matthew T. Smith Jr, MD: Dr Smith’s project focuses on increasing health literacy among African American men through accessible, relevant, and digestible information delivered in the centers of the Black community in New York City.

International Student Humanitarian Research Grant Program

New in 2023, the International Student Humanitarian Research Grant Program supports medical students who will travel to, and complete humanitarian work specifically in, the country of Trinidad and Tobago. Supported by Carol and Kurt McCammon, MD, the grant is awarded to an AUA medical student member who will pursue humanitarian efforts to advance public health and/or quality improvement initiatives in the provision of urological care for this underserved population. Our first recipients were Geneva Pantoja, BA, and Amanda Wibben, BA, MTS. Under the mentorship of Dr Satyendra Persaud at San Fernando General Hospital, their research consisted of collecting clinical data from patients with prostate cancer in an effort to determine the disease’s economic impact on the country’s health system.

Read past and present trip reports from all our grant recipients on our website.

Humanitarian Recognition Award

The Urology Care Foundation Humanitarian Recognition Award acknowledges an individual for demonstrated commitment to improving access to quality urological health care in underserved populations. The awardee is someone who exemplifies the spirit of philanthropy as evidenced by prior humanitarian work. Our 2024 recipient was Syed Adibul Hasan Rizvi, FRCS. As founder of the Sindh Institute of Urology and Transplantation, Dr Rizvi turned an 8-bed ward in 1971 into South Asia’s largest public health care institution. In 2022 alone, the Institute treated over 3.3 million patients.

Learn more about Dr Rizvi and previous awardees on our website.

I am proud of our work and look forward to many more projects and initiatives to better serve the global urological community. Each of these efforts forms a solid foundation upon which the Urology Care Foundation can continue to advance its mission of improving urologic health care globally.