BAUS 2018 Liverpool

On behalf of BAUS Council, I am delighted to invite you to the 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting. The feedback we received about the new format for BAUS last year was excellent and 2018 sees us build on this success. The meeting programme aims to be relevant to all of us in our working lives – the subjects cover both clinical issues as well as ones that support our health and well-being. 

It is the 70th anniversary of the NHS this year and we have a session on Tuesday 26 June which will mark this milestone. While those of us on the front line continue to be challenged by the resources available to us to support the delivery of care, our patients have undoubtedly benefited from innovations in the specialty and Professor Tony Young is leading a session on this important subject. James Green’s session on quality improvement continues this theme, and Simon Harrison will be giving an update on the Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) project for Urology in his JCU address. 

In addition to state of the art papers, we are delighted, once again, to have a number of key opinion leaders joining us for the meeting. Professor Robert Wachter (Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine, University of California in San Francisco) will be giving the BJUI Guest Lecture. Professor Wachter chaired the National Advisory Group on Health Information Technology in England which resulted in the publication of the Wachter Review advising the National Health Service on its digital strategy – a session definitely not to be missed. We are also delighted to welcome Professor Alan Partin, the 2018 St Paul’s Medal winner, and Professor Sanjay Kulkarni, who will be receiving Honorary Membership of BAUS. They will both be speakers in the "Global Urological Practice – Similarities and Differences" session being led by Duncan Summerton, as well as participating in sessions throughout the week. We are grateful to all our international speakers for taking the time to travel to Liverpool and for their contributions to the scientific programme: confirmed speakers include Professor Ben Chew (Vancouver, Canada), Dr Matt Neilsen (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA), Dr Andre van der Merwe (Stellenbosch, South Africa), Dr Andrea Saloni (Milan, Italy), Dr Howard Goldman (Cleveland, Ohio, USA) and Dr Frank van der Aa (Leuven, Belgium). 

Last year we had a session entitled "When things go wrong" which focused on the impact of adverse events. This year’s BAUS Guest Lecturer is Mr David Sellu who has agreed to share his experiences with us – this promises to be a very thought provoking lecture. Professor Kevin Turner then brings us a session on "AUR – Adverse Events, Urologists & Resistance" which will be relevant to all of us in our working lives. 

The Academic Urology, Andrology (AGURS) and Female (FNUU) Sections will be holding their annual meetings on Monday 25 June. There will be a joint session between Andrology (AGURS) and Female (FNUU) sections on Monday afternoon. On Wednesday Dominic Hodgson (Education Lead for FYs and CTs) is convening a meeting for core trainees in urology and we will also hope to welcome our first medical student members to our Annual Meeting – this new (non-voting) membership category was agreed by the BAUS Trustees in February and we are delighted they will become part of our very special Association. 

The programme of courses will run again this year and, as ever, we advise if you plan to attend a Teaching or Skills Course - please book early as places are limited; we expect they will prove to be popular. We will be introducing a new Skills Course on MRI and Target Biopsy as well as new Teaching Courses on Research Methodology and the Urology Finishing School. 

The meeting concludes on Wednesday afternoon with a session giving updates from each of the Sections and breaking news. This is a "must attend" session and promises to give a fantastic overview of recent publications and developments in urology over the past year. 

The main social event of the meeting will be a drinks reception held on Monday 25 June in the iconic Liver Building. This will be a great opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues. 

Our thanks go to our colleagues from the pharmaceutical and equipment companies for continuing their very generous support of the Association’s educational activities, including meetings run by the Sections and courses run by the Education Committee. I hope you will show your appreciation by visiting their stands in the Medical and Trade Exhibition during the week. We have scheduled times into the programme to allow you to visit the Exhibition Hall. 

I would like to thank Paul Jones (Honorary Secretary) and Asif Muneer (Honorary Secretary Elect) for leading the development of an exceptional and highly relevant meeting programme. Our thanks also go to members of the Programme Committee and Section Executive Committees for their hard work in putting together excellent sessions, to our Abstract Reviewers for reading and marking all the submitted abstracts, to Mr Sam Hampson for proof reading the abstracts, to Maelstrom, our Exhibition Managers and, most importantly, to Hannah Doyle (Events Manager) and Harry Heald (Events Co-ordinator) in the BAUS Office for the enormous amount of work they have put into planning this meeting. 

"Scouse BAUS" always proves to be popular – and I hope you will join me for my second, and final, meeting as BAUS President. I will be handing over the Presidency to Duncan Summerton at the meeting and would like to wish him every success in this most prestigious role. I hope you can join us and I look forward to seeing you in June...