Celebrating USANZ Members

Trainee Exchange Program 2025

Each year, USANZ partners with the European Association of Urology (EAU), Canadian Urological Association (CUA), and Urological Association of Asia (UAA) to offer SET5 Trainees the opportunity to attend an international training meeting. This opportunity is generously supported by Ipsen through their contribution to travel costs.

We are delighted to announce the successful recipients of this year's Trainee Exchange Program.

• Matt Farag will attend the Canadian Senior Urology Residents Retreat and CUA Annual Meeting on 27-29 June in Ottawa
• Michael Chen and Allen Chen will attend the Asian Urology Residents Course and UAA Congress on 15-17 August in Taipei
• Niranjan Sathianathen and Varun Bhoopathy will attend the European Urology Residents Education Program on 29 August - 3 September in Prague

These opportunities are made possible through the generous support of Ipsen, who will contribute toward travel costs. Host associations will provide registration and accommodation as per their individual arrangements.

Congratulations to you all. We are sure you will be wonderful representatives of the Society and we look forward to hearing about your travels.

Recategorisation of Surgeries at Orange Hospital

On Tuesday night, the 7:30 Report ran a story about alleged breaches of NSW Health policy at Orange Hospital. The issues include alleged downgrading the urgency of cancer patients and delaying their surgery without clinical justification.

The breaches were raised by Dr Rob Knox, director of the surgical department, and his predecessor USANZ Member Dr Clair Whelan. They spoke about changes to the urgency status of patient surgeries, with shifts from Category One (operations must be done within 30 days) to Category Four (patients "not ready for care"), including with doctor approval.

The spokesperson for the Western NSW Local Health District said "a business case was being prepared to examine the current and future vascular surgical demand".

Watch the 7:30 segment on iView and read the related ABC article. 

Further to this, Clair Whelan expands on the risk to providing urological services in Orange in an additional ABC News article.

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