Community urologists are the backbone of the Canadian Urological Association

Traditionally, urologists have defined themselves as belonging to one of two groups: community urologists, which comprises the majority of Canadian Urological Association (CUA) members, and academic urologists. What are the differences between those who describe themselves as community urologists and those who describe themselves as academic urologists? How can the CUA serve the needs of both these groups? The CUA posed these questions to forums of urologists in 2013 and 2014, with a view to being an association responsive to all our members. The CUA has prioritized increasing engagement of the entirety of our urologist community.

The community urologists in these forums described their practice as non-academic, with considerably less access to residents, allied professional support, new technology, research funding, and/or continuous peer-review than their academic colleagues. The scope of practice in terms of procedures and referral base (primarily family physicians), as well as teaching responsibilities (primarily family physicians and nurses) are also different.

Community urologists have told us they want to participate in CUA activities and play a major role in shaping CUA priorities. The CUA executive has noted a recent increase in community urology involvement in CUA committees and activities. This is despite the fact that it might be more difficult to participate because of running busy clinical practices and having less practice support (financial support and/or trainee coverage) to attend meetings. We believe we are getting better at engaging our entire community of urologists.

There is now more that unifies the academic and community urology groups than separates us. Our community takes pride in the achievements of our Canadian research “stars” and understands the importance of Canada being recognized at the forefront of urologic research worldwide. That is why we continue to support the Research Foundation in its goal to promote excellence in Canadian urological research. The CUA Office of Education has grants available to community urologists, while the Scientific Foundation has a process for community research grants that will be judged on merits of relevance to general urology practice.

The CUA mandate of providing up-to-date continuing medical education to both its members and the general physician population is also important to both academic and community urologists, with the community urologists advocating a focus on general, practical topics. The CUA patient information brochures are widely used in academic and non- academic practices. The Canadian Urological Association Journal provides a forum for academic urologists to publish their work, as well as practical and review articles for all urologists in practice. The CUA guidelines have been acknowledged as a valuable contribution for both academic and community urologists. We are all concerned about the looming manpower crisis in urology and the CUA Health Policy Committee (formerly the Socioeconomic Committee) has taken this issue as one of its main priorities; this issue will impact all currently practicing, as well as future urologists.

All Canadian urologists enjoy meeting each other and networking at our national urology meeting as part of our annual learning process. The format of the annual meeting has evolved to address both the CPD requirements of urology practice (practical “hands-on” seminars, topic-orientated educational fora, clinically practical debates, state-of- the-art lectures from world-renowned urologists, etc.) and the research needs of the academic group (primarily in poster sessions, now acknowledged as the best and most appropriate format for researchers to present their work). The interactions and mingling of our association members is also successfully achieved at the social events (reception, fun night, banquet), as well as in the industry halls and meeting room corridors.

Having experienced the real and palpable split between academic and community urologists in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, we can confidently state that in Canada, we are one community working toward a common goal of supporting excellence in urologic care nationally. The community urologists in Canada are indeed the backbone of our national organization. The CUA is our organization and it remains vital and important for all urologists.

We, as president of the CUA and Chairman of the CUA Community Urology Committee, ask that you continue to support our organization by becoming involved in our executive, our committees, our activities, our journal, and by attending our meetings. Together, we are the CUA.

If you have an issue you would like your professional association to address, please do not hesitate to contact Executive Director, Tiffany Pizioli at tiffany.pizioli@cua.org, President, J. Cutis Nickel at jcn@queensu.ca, or Chairman of the Community Urology Committee, Frank Papanikolaou at Frank.Papanikolaou@trilliumhealthpartners.ca.