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went to my first Congress in 1986. I believe it was in Vienna. I gave my first presentation there. This was on hypospadias repair, which was really not my thing. I was interested in Oncology, but my boss made a presentation with a movie regarding a technique of hypospadias repair. Furthermore, you must know that if you are teaching for the ESU, you get a score. The attendees score you as good, moderate, bad, boring, ununderstandable or whatever. So, if you scored well, you got more and more invitations. So, in the end I was pretty active in the ESU, before I became the Director of the School.
T.S.: You were the Director of the European School of Urology (ESU) during 8 years and in 2012 you became the EAU Adjunct Secretary General, responsible for Education. How important is the contribution of the EAU to urological training?
H.vP.: Well obviously, since I became the director of the ESU, which is the Education Office of the EAU, we have been working very hard on the rather limited programme that we got when I started there. Before me, Christopher Chapple had already been seriously working on strengthening the role and the impact of the ESU. His amazing work, along with the work that I did during these eight years, was offered to my successor in ESU, Joan Palou from Barcelona. Ι can proudly say that the ESU is today the leading education organisation for urologists not only in Europe, but also worldwide. I think that the opportunity that I was offered, to lead the School and afterwards becoming the EAU Executive Member for Education (Adjunct Secretary General), was for me one of the most important tasks within the EAU. Remember that the EAU is there for urologists. So, we
organize the Congresses and we educate urologists. With the School, we can educate youngsters and people that have less facilities in their own places. Out of all the activities of the EAU, the money that we spent in education, is well spent. The EAU is not a poor organization, as you may know, but the budget that goes to education is huge. Education is not only the School, it’s also the Guidelines and the Scholarship Programs. Young clinicians are offered the opportunity to go and visit other places and other Professors, for six weeks, three months, one or more years, paid by the EAU. So, I think that this investment of the EAU, really shows that we want to be the prime Organization that ensures that training in Urology and education is absolutely possible for every member in Europe and worldwide.
T.S.: In your opinion which one should be the biggest change in urological training? Do you believe that existing training is satisfying? Does it differ across different geographical areas? H.vP.: Well, there are many differences in the availability of surgical techniques and tools. So, if you look throughout Europe, there are big differences, certainly since the introduction of minimally-invasive techniques, since the introduction of laparoscopic and robot-assisted surgery, which is major progress. You know there are countries where there is only one robot and then mostly in a private hospital, where patients need to pay huge amounts of money. So, there are inequalities from North to South, from East to West, that we need to tackle and try to absorb them. Since I started my work at the European Parliament, and the European Commission, I am very much concerned on how we can try to decrease these inequalities. But these inequalities are absolutely there. We all know examples of countries that are not able to deliver quality urological care as compared to other countries, where the standard of urological care is fantastic.
F.N.: When you look back on time, how was
the experience of serving the EAU Executive as Adjunct Secretary General?
H.vP.: I was Adjunct Secretary General for Education for another 8 years. It’s not only the School, it’s the Guidelines Office, it’s the Scholarship Programme, it’s the EU-ACME, it’s the Young Urology Office, which is also a part of it. Now, what an Adjunct Secretary General does is to bring the Executive Board up
Tεύχος 25 | Σεπτέμβριος – Οκτώβριος 2023
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