Noordwijk 2025: “Addressing the working culture of urology”
During the EAU Meets National Societies Meeting in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, we also spoke to Adjunct-Secretary General Prof. Jens Sønksen (DK) about his impressions of the meeting, as well as its importance for maintaining good relations between Europe’s urologists.
“I think the meeting is improving every year,” says Prof. Sønksen. “Topic selection is crucial. You can typically tell which subjects hold everyone’s interest more than others and this year I think we had a series of topics that engaged everyone, and were relevant for every country and every urologist present.”
“The meeting is also very important for the EAU Board, specifically the Executive. We find out what the most important issues are in European urology, and I like to think that we are approachable and open to criticism as well. Europe’s urologists should feel at home in the EAU and we are here for them.”
Non-medical aspects of urology
Borrowing from the successful Talent Incubator Programme, this year’s Noordwijk meeting also covered the topic of non-medical skills for urologists: the essential value of empathy, the scientific evidence behind stress and the issue of the work-life balance for (young) urologists. These topics raised a lot of discussion, particularly in the afternoon’s break-out session. National representatives, often pairs of senior and junior urologists, reflected on their experiences and how their departments deal with these issues.
Prof. Sønksen: “I was very pleasantly surprised that these topics were so well-received by all participants. I initially imagined that topics like this would be limited to certain age groups or regions of Europe but in fact, a lot of people recognised the need for addressing the working culture of urology as much as the medical part.”
“It seems that everyone at different academic or professional levels is aware of how important it is that the culture of a department is largely determined by the example set by its leaders. There must be a focus on our younger colleagues, related to work-life balance, empathy, the room they have in their schedules for research, all of that. Then you can build trust and a good future together.”
Whether this was all a byproduct of too high of a work or case load for the current generation of urologists, Prof. Sønksen raised the unforeseen issue of the increase in shorter hospital stays:
“It’s an interesting question, also raised by Prof. Stenzl, that the frequency of short hospitals stays, and therefore the in-take and dismissal form a relatively larger part of everyone’s working day. In big emergency departments, with a lot of cases per week, this can lead to a huge workload. As the European population ages and urological cases will become more frequent, we might be the busiest of all outpatient clinics. Who has time for research or personal reflection then?”
Setting an example
Perhaps it’s not even the workload that is the real causer of the disproportionate number of burn-outs among urologists compared to other branches of medicine. Prof. Sønksen:
“Our colleague Dr. Pia Kraft from the Young Urologists Office gave a really good presentation that highlighted the importance of culture and atmosphere in urology departments that perhaps helped most in creating good working conditions. Being made to feel welcome by leaders, that they have their backs with complications, it’s all part of the same story.”
“As a personal example: in my department we can no longer have one Professor who is also the head of department and in charge of everything. This is an old, eminence-based attitude that is completely at odds with effectively running a department with 100 doctors. You really have to split these tasks up between clinical work, research, management and so forth. Who is going to be in charge of making sure the department is also a good environment for people to work in?”
The diagnoses of what constitutes stress, burn-out and depression might not be set in stone, but the fact that this topic was widely embraced at the National Societies Meeting, and the fact that the EAU is addressing it on a European level can already be considered a success.
“It would be very easy to dismiss these concerns as a generational thing, or say it’s the responsibility of individuals or hospitals, but we are talking about it and offering concrete suggestions at a European level now.”
- Read more about how the EAU is trying to “create better urologists” through its education and events in our reporting from the Noordwijk meeting.