President's Oct 2022 Newsletter

A group of 9 people who are responsible for the governance and strategic direction of the organisation. We work closely with BAUS Council to deliver these roles. Trustees include 5 elected officers and 4 co-opted Trustees, including one non-urological Trustee.

On the map to the right, you can see the geographical distribution of Trustees.

The next elections for officers are in 2023 and will be the Secretary Elect and Treasurer Elect.

All voting members of BAUS are eligible to stand for election and we welcome everyone to consider themselves and their colleagues as potential nominees.

The Widening Participation group hopes to develop a shadowing programme for aspiring leaders who wish to find out more about BAUS roles.

Congratulations to the Section of Endourology Executive Committee, led by Sri Sriprasad, who delivered an excellent section meeting in Southampton. A good range of topics was presented, appealing to the subspecialist and generalist alike. In this company I am most definitely the latter. It was particularly pleasing to meet allied health professionals including radiographers with an interest in lithotripsy.

The bursary program offered by the section was well-received, and it would be great to see this adopted for other meetings. It was also a pleasure to see broad representation from around the UK.

The BAGURS/BAUS FNUU/Andrology Meeting in Sheffield was excellent. Good to hear about service developments, and reconstruction/andrology/bladder dysfunction past, present and future. As well as what carnivorous plants and super-specialisation have in common! - ask Richard Inman.

I was asked if it was mandatory for the BAUS President to attend section meetings. It is not, but my predecessors and I really enjoy the opportunity to meet with colleagues from other subspecialty interests. I did admit, of course, that I will also be cheer-leading my home-territory with the Section of Oncology (7- 8 November 2022), followed by the SAS Working Group meeting in Birmingham on the 19 November 2022. Myself and other Trustees, will also endeavour to attend as many regional meetings as possible, since this is one of the most effective ways to hear the views of colleagues. Having been warmly welcomed by the East Midlands Urological Society (EMUS) and the Irish Society of Urology (ISU), I am looking forward to networking with colleagues in Yorkshire, Northern Ireland, South London/KSS and North of England in November.

The FRCS (Urol) Revision Course remains one of our most popular courses. This September there was a transition in leadership. Our thanks to Hari Ratan for superb leadership of this course, and welcome to Suzanne Biers and Sian Allen who took over the helm this month. It is noteworthy that this is an example of BAUS leadership roles that lend themselves to the job-sharing we have all become accustomed to in our clinical practice.

The ST3 Urology Bootcamp in Leeds last week was once again an outstanding educational event. The trainees are treated to fantastic opportunities with 1:1 training from an enthusiastic faculty. The support from colleagues and industry is tremendous. Chatting to new trainees, I was able to share with them that BAUS membership is free for ST3 colleagues through sponsorship from Karl Storz Urology. I was surprised to find that this message has still not reached everyone. If you know an ST3 trainee, please highlight this opportunity.

This leads into an update about BAUS communications and digital project. We are very grateful for all the work from Nigel Bullock and the BAUS team who have developed and curated a wonderful array of resources on the website. The world of communications and social media is fast-moving and we are busy defining what is needed and what are the best tools to deliver.

I am grateful to Lisa Dodgshon (BAUS Trustee, pictured right) for leading this project, with support from BAUS members who have shared their ideas over the last year. BAUS is ready to invest resources into the right approach for our members, with understanding that curating and constant updates are required to create a dynamic resource for the future.

You may have recently responded to a survey of members (and non-members who are currently unlikely to see this newsletter). We identified 3 strategic themes (Education, Membership and Workforce) which had been highlighted as important at regional meetings and the BAUS Annual Meeting. A huge thank you to all of you who responded and also to the BAUS regional representatives who sought views from colleagues who are not members. All of this data was reviewed at a strategy meeting of BAUS members – many of whom are your elected leaders of BAUS Council. We were also fortunate to have strong representation from trainees, SAS doctors and allied health professionals. Together as a membership charity, we have the opportunity to respond to the most pressing needs of our members, with the shared challenge of identifying which projects we wish to prioritise for resource allocation.

Only by sharing with you how your membership fees are used can we all start to make those difficult choices about which of many exciting and worthy projects we should take forward. The next steps will be to develop a short-list of projects and to build programs of work to be delivered over the next 3 years. A progress report will come with the next newsletter early in 2023.

Strategy meeting attendees in York, Sep 2022

© 2022 The British Association of Urological Surgeons

This photograph may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium provided it is reproduced accurately and not in a misleading context. The photograph must be acknowledged as BAUS copyright and the photograph title (BAUS Council Strategy Meeting, 2022) correctly specified.  BAUS is a registered charity in England and Wales (1127044)

Emergency Ureteric Injury Management Audit (REJOIN)

We hope that units have been logging any ureteric injury cases that have presentted between 1 February and 30 September 2022. Please now add follow-up data, until and including 31 January 2023. Click here for further details of tis audit.

National Audit of Patient Satisfaction with Cystectomy Pathway for Bladder Cancer (PROM) using validated C-PAT tool developed by the Section of Oncology

THis is a joint audit, being run by BAUS and ABCUK, the first of its kind. All centres doing cystectomy are currently being invited to participate. The audit will be launched at the Section of Oncology Winter Meeting in Liverpool. Click here for further details of this audit.

Nephrostomy Snapshot Audit

The recent BAUS survey on nephrostomy service provision yielded responses from 110 UK units. Responses will inform development of the audit to be launched in Autumn 2023.

The RESECT study by Kevin Gallagher and BURST

A great effort by UK centres in registering and entering date for the retrospective phase. A big push is now needed to get this study over the line. If you are a trainee, and have just rotated to a new unit, please get involved. Click here for further details.

Finally, each of the four clinical Section Executive Committees have vacancies for Committee Members.   These roles are a fantastic opportunity to really get involved and support the work of the Sections - nominations will be invited in early November 2022.