CLU aims to expand international ties
CLU’s goals is to achieve closer ties amongst members of the entire Portuguese-speaking urological community in various fields including technical, scientific, social and professional areas.
In November 2009 during the 32nd Brazilian Congress of Urology held in Goiania, Brazil, the (pro) Portuguese-speaking Lusophone Confederation of Urology – or the Confederação Lusófona de Urologia(CLU) - was created.
There are approximately 300 million Portuguesespeaking people all over the world, and from the so-called Portuguese-speaking world or Community of Portuguese Language Countries there is an estimated 4,500 urologists, with the majority (4,000) from Brazil and an estimated 350 specialists coming from Portugal.
Aside from Portugal and Brazil, other Portuguesespeaking countries are Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, Guinea Bissau, São Tomé and Principe, Timor and Portuguese communities in Asia, Goa and Macau. With this substantial number of Portuguese-speaking urological specialists there was clearly an unmet need to create formal links.
The CLU’s foundation was officially announced in a plenary session of the congress by José Carlos Almeida, at that time president of the Brazilian Society of Urology, and this author who is also the nominated president of the new confederation. The representatives from Brazil, Portugal and Angola formally signed a document which stated the aims of the newly-created confederation and bore the confirmation from representatives of Mozambique and Cape Verde.
Prof. Manuel Mendes Silva (fourth from left) with officers of the Confederação Lusófona de Urologia (CLU)
Following the CLU’s creation a board of directors was formed with this author appointed as president, Mário Ronalsa Brandão as vice-president (Brazil), treasurer Sidney Glina (Brazil), secretary Pedro Nunes (Portugal), Sidónio Monteiro (Cape Verde), Manuel Videira (Angola), Igor Vaz (Mozambique) and Paulo Palma (Brazil), president of the General Assembly.
Around 200 urologists from the aforementioned Portuguese-speaking countries who were in attendance were also invited as founding members. The event was deemed significant as it finally united Portuguese-speaking urologists regardless of their nationality or previous professional affiliations.
In a nutshell, the CLU’s goals is to achieve closer ties amongst members of the entire Portuguese-speaking urological community in various fields including technical, scientific, social and professional areas. A main objective is to develop strong relations and collaborative efforts amongst members of the Lusophone countries and regions.
Moreover, the group aims to provide direct support to or the sponsoring of institutional actions that focus on the promotion, development, progress, investigation, teaching and strengthening of urology. These goals are intended to be actively pursued in a spirit of open dialogue that would lead to stable partnerships.
It is also a part of the group’s objectives to broaden their links with other professional medical groups. The CLU believes that by actively representing their members it needs to establish closer ties with other national and international urological associations based in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia and the rest of the world. The group plans to reach out to other Lusophone associations (including non-medical) which have similar collaborative goals.
Furthermore, the CLU leadership is convinced that active dialogue and a robust exchange with international urological groups such as the European Association of Urology (EAU), the American Urological Association (AUA), the Confederación Americana de Urologia (CAU) and the Societé Internacional d´Urologie (SIU), amongst others, will eventually lead to close partnerships on technical and pedagogic fields of investigation, teaching and training in urology, to name a few.
The CLU’s administrative offices is based in Lisbon, Portugal. To those interested to learn more about the CLU, our goals and current projects, we look forward to hear from you. Correspondence and inquiries can be directed at the following contact details: Confederação Lusófona de Urologia - Ad-Médic, Calçada de Arroios, 16-C, Sala 3, 1000-027 Lisboa, Portugal, Phone:+351218429710; Fax:+351218429719; Email: paula.cordeiro@admedic.pt