NEW UPDATE: Endourology and Laparoscopic Fellowship at UC San Diego & Kaiser Permanente

Dear Colleagues:I am pleased to announce an update to our fellowship program which will begin next summer (2012). The program will now be a joint UC San Diego and Kaiser Permanente fellowship program. In addition to performing endourology/kidney stone cases at UCSD, the trainee will split time at Kaiser Permanente for his/her dedicated Robotic/laparoscopic training. The robotic/laparoscopic training will permit the fellow to be the sole trainee during this portion of the training, while the stone aspect will be shared with residents. The fellowship will offer fellows an opportunity to complete three major goals. Firstly, the surgical experience will include mastery of both routine and complex kidney stone procedures, such as ureteroscopy, shock wave lithotripsy, percutaneous nephrolithotomy, urinary diversion stone disease surgery, laparoscopic stone surgery (incuding DaVinci assisted) and on rare indications, open stone surgery.  Regarding pecutaneous surgery, the fellow will gain mastery of gaining percutaneous access without the need for interventional radiology assistance.  Ultrasound assisted percutaneous techniques are also highly encouraged for the fellow’s training.  Benign pathology will also be treated incuding ureteral stricture and ureteropelvic junction obstruction.  Nephron sparing endoscopic techniques will also be implemented for transitional cell carcinoma.  This endourological experience will occur at UC San Diego. The fellowship will also include mastery of routine and complex minimally invasive surgery, such as Laparoscopic and Robotic surgery for genitourinary malignancies and benign disease, Laparoendoscopic Single Site Surgery (LESS) and Natural Orifice Transluminal Endoscopic Surgery (NOTES). This laparoscopic/robotic experience will occur at Kaiser Permanente.  Secondly the fellows will participate in the metabolic clinic at UC San Diego Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center, which is a multi-disciplinary clinic incorporating dieticians, endocrinologists, bariatric medicine subspecialties. At Kaiser Permanente fellows will participate in clinic with Kaiser attending physicians and understand both the pre-surgical and post-surgical management of both benign and malignant urologic diseases that involve minimally invasive surgery. Lastly, the fellowship will provide the fellow vast opportunity for both clinical and basic science research.  There are numerous UCSD and Kaiser Permanente IRB approved clinical & basic science studies evaluating genitourinary malignancies and kidney stone disease.  The centers collaborate with other academic centers in multi-institutional studies. The centers also benefit from local collaborations with institutions such as Naval Medical Center San Diego.  Basic science will be available for the fellows as they will have access to laboratory facilities at the UCSD School of Medicine.     Interested candidates should send a letter, CV, and two letters.   Sincerely,Roger L. Sur, M.D. Associate Professor of Surgery Division of Urology UC San Diego Health Sciences Comprehensive Kidney Stone Center, Director 200 West Arbor Drive #8897 San Diego, CA 92103 619-694-0817 cell 619-290-4758 pager 619-543-6573 fax 619-543-2628 (assistant-Peggy Ealson)