In Memoriam: Former ESUT Chair Ali Serdar Gözen (1963-2024)
The EAU was saddened to learn of the passing of Prof. Ali Serdar Gözen on 15 August, 2024, at the age of 61. Prof. Gözen was Chair of the EAU Section of Uro-Technology from 2020 until its merger with EULIS earlier this year.
He was a much-respected colleague who split his time between Edirne, Turkey and Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany. Since 2018 he was Professor of Urology at Trakya University in Edirne, and after a long career in Heilbronn he became vice-chair of the Department of Urology and head of the robotics programme at Medius-Klinik, Ostfildern-Ruit in 2023.
Prof. Gözen was an expert in laparoscopic and robotically-assisted urology, and he was closely involved with the EAU Section of Uro-Technology, most notably as chair of its Training Group since 2016. He was an innovator in urology education, having served as a driving force behind the ESU-ESUT Training & Research Group. This group developed among other things the E-BLUS programme, and laid the foundations for the EAU’s wider training standardisation programmes. He served as a Hands-on Training tutor at several of the European School of Urology’s events since 2011.
Prof. Gözen guided and mentored dozens of young urologists over the years, travelling across the world to establish connections between various urology departments. He served on the editorial board of several prestigious international medical journals, including the Turkish Journal of Urology, the World Journal of Urology and the Balkan Medical Journal.
Under Prof. Gözen’s leadership, collaboration between the EAU Sections of Uro-Technology and Urolithiasis had already led to the creation of a joint meeting, UROtech, held in Istanbul in 2022 and in Vienna in 2024. In 2024, the two sections merged to form the EndoUroTechnology Section, now led by Prof. Olivier Traxer.