The UCLA Department of Urology publishes a periodic newsletter that presents the latest information from the world of Urology, as well as new innovations from within the Department.
Newsletters are archived here in PDF format, and can be read using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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Posted Jun 09, 2020
Nicte Mack can still remember one of the first conversations she had with Dr. Steve Lerman, the Judith and Robert Winston Chair in Pediatric Urology, director of the Clark-Morrison Children’s Urological Center at UCLA and chief of UCLA Urology’s Division of Pediatric Urology.
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Posted Mar 04, 2020
Substantial headway has been made against prostate cancer in the last 15-plus years, thanks in no small part to the UCLA Prostate Cancer Program, which has contributed to the development of effective new drugs for treating advanced forms of the disease; developed better imaging techniques for detecting it; and engendered a better understanding of risk, enabling many patients to avoid unnecessary treatment.
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Posted Dec 04, 2019
From an outsider’s perspective, a leading university urology program such as UCLA’s is most often associated with outstanding patient care and research. But within UCLA Urology, the education and training of medical students, interns, residents, and fellows is as important as any aspect of the department’s mission.
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Posted Sep 18, 2019
At a time of dramatic advances in the diagnosis and treatment of patients with kidney cancer, the UCLA Kidney Cancer Program — which has a storied history of innovation and leadership in fighting the disease — has redoubled its research and clinical efforts under new leadership.
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Posted Jun 26, 2019
One of the most common health problems facing women, particularly as they age, is too often ignored. When brought to the attention of experts such as those at UCLA, women with pelvic floor disorders can be treated successfully. But, whether out of embarrassment, a lack of awareness that their problem is common and can be addressed, or because their primary care physician doesn’t bring it up, many women suffer in silence.
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Posted Mar 21, 2019
In the aftermath of the tragic death of her 21-year-old son Alec in 2016, Kirsten Jepsen experienced something beautiful: As a designated organ donor, Alec’s two kidneys, liver and heart were recovered, shipped, and successfully transplanted into four individuals whose organs were failing them.
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Posted Nov 27, 2018
Sir Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist, changed the course of medicine with his 1928 discovery of penicillin, which paved the way for the use of antibiotics to treat patients with bacterial infections. But nearly a century later, antibiotic resistance has become one of the world’s biggest public heath crises. Through the evolutionary process, bacteria learn to adapt to antibiotics over time, necessitating the development of new drugs.
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Posted Oct 03, 2018
Even before he retired, Neil Wong was devoted to his morning exercise routine with a religious fervor. Then one day several years ago, Mr. Wong unexpectedly found himself experiencing a crippling level of discomfort. Mr. Wong spent an agonizing 36 hours before the source of his pain, a stone that had developed in his kidney, passed through his urinary tract.
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Posted Jul 11, 2018
Dr. Stephen R. Shapiro practiced pediatric urology for 38 years, so in 2016, when his PSA began to rise and his urologist found a prostate nodule during a routine rectal exam, Dr. Shapiro was all too familiar with the likely diagnosis. Having attended UCLA Urology’s annual State-of-the-Art Urology Conference, Dr. Shapiro had seen a presentation by Leonard Marks, MD, UCLA Urology professor and a pioneer in developing the targeted prostate biopsy.
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Posted Mar 14, 2018
For patients seeking compassionate, personalized and innovative urological care, the Westside of Los Angeles, home of UCLA, has long been a destination of choice. Consistently ranked among the nation’s top four urology programs in the U.S. News & World Report annual survey, UCLA Urology boasts some of the leading physicians and researchers in the field, drawing patients — in some cases from great distances — for state-of-the-art treatment of rare and common conditions alike.
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Posted Nov 16, 2017
Eight-year-old Evan Beier tells his UCLA Urology physicians that he will one day be elected president of the United States. Based on his positive attitude, can-do spirit and ability to overcome the odds that have been against him since birth, no one is about to disagree.
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Posted Sep 20, 2017
For the UCLA Urology faculty and trainees who staff the Department of Veterans Affairs West Los Angeles Medical Center (WLA) and affiliated VA facilities throughout the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System (VAGLAHS), the time spent in clinical, research and training activities carries a special significance.
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Posted Jun 28, 2017
As an integral part of the safety net, Los Angeles County’s hospitals and clinics serve the region’s most vulnerable populations, including uninsured patients and those covered by Medicaid. One might assume that healthcare at these sites wouldn’t be comparable to the care at facilities serving privately insured patients in more affluent communities such as Westwood and Santa Monica, where UCLA’s two hospitals are located.
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Posted Apr 05, 2017
In 1967, a UCLA Urology team participated in the first living-donor kidney transplant at UCLA. Ted Lombard, then 38, donated his kidney to his daughter Denice, then 13. Dr. Willard Goodwin, UCLA Urology’s founding chief, was a member of the team. Dr. Robert B. Smith, currently a professor in the department, was on the team as a resident.
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Posted Nov 16, 2016
The Men’s Clinic at UCLA opened a year ago as a multidisciplinary health and wellness center aiming to “change the narrative” – a culture in which U.S. women tend to be attentive to their wellness and preventive health needs, while many men wait until they are sick rather than taking proactive steps to optimize their health.
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Posted Aug 30, 2016
His photographs are featured in 19 museums around the world, including the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, UCLA Hammer Museum and George Eastman House, to name a few. Dr. Richard M. Ehrlich, UCLA Urology professor emeritus, has built a successful second career as a fine-art photographer.
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Posted Jun 16, 2016
Whether he’s fulfilling his role as a mentor and teacher of residents and medical students, conducting research, or heading a multidisciplinary program to improve end-of-life care at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Jonathan Bergman, MD, MPH, is guided by a simple but important lesson from his training as a UCLA Urology resident and Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar.
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Posted Apr 13, 2016
Like many of her colleagues in academic medicine, Isla Garraway, MD, PhD, could hardly be blamed for wishing there were more hours in the day. In addition to a busy clinical practice seeing patients as attending urologist at the VA West Los Angeles Medical Center, the UCLA Urology associate professor runs an active prostate cancer research laboratory and serves as director of research for the department.
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Posted Nov 18, 2015
UCLA Urologist Jesse N. Mills, MD, suggests that when it comes to looking after their health, men could learn a few things from women. Men are less likely than women to seek routine medical care and are more likely to ignore dangerous health warning signs, Dr. Mills notes. Unlike women, men tend not to go in for routine checkups between the ages of 18 and 50.
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Posted Sep 23, 2015
When Jon Post was advised by his doctor that he should see a urologist about his rising PSA levels, the 56-year-old resident of San Clemente, CA, stayed close to home. But when a biopsy revealed that Post had Stage II prostate cancer, he decided to expand his search. “When you hear you have cancer, suddenly all that’s important is finding the best possible place to be seen, no matter where it is,” he explains.
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Posted Jul 06, 2015
UCLA Urology is growing. In Westwood and Santa Monica, and for patients with wide-ranging urological needs, the department is expanding access to its services with new and larger spaces. But size is only part of the story. Through a purposeful and coordinated effort, the new facilities are bringing together diverse teams of experts and trainees in ways that promote more communication and, as a result, enhanced training and clinical care. And through more attractive and centralized facilities, the growth is dramatically improving the patient experience.
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Posted Mar 12, 2015
He carried the reins for UCLA Urology longer than anyone – a 27-year period during which the department grew exponentially and became recognized as a world leader in research, teaching and patient care. Now, four years after Dr. Jean B. deKernion stepped down as UCLA Urology chair, a committed group of donors have honored him through an endowment fund that will bring benefits to the department in perpetuity.
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Posted Dec 01, 2014
For the approximately 400,000 Americans diagnosed with kidney, bladder, testicular or prostate cancer each year, the anxiety associated with the diagnosis is often increased by the need to make multiple appointments with a slew of disparately located specialists. At a time when they need comfort and compassion, many patients find themselves mired in a process that can take weeks, and often yields confusing or conflicting advice.
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Posted Oct 09, 2014
Through a multidisciplinary approach to evaluation and patient care, along with national leadership in learning more about medical conditions of the reproductive system that have historically been difficult to diagnose and treat, the UCLA Urology-based Disorders of Sex Development (DSD) Clinic is meeting a critical need for patients who have in the past had few places to go for help.
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Posted Jun 27, 2014
When Carol Bennett, MD, joined the UCLA Urology faculty, all of her colleagues were male. This wasn’t so long ago – the year was 1996 – and UCLA was no anomaly. At the University of Michigan, where Dr. Bennett had completed her training, she had been the first female in the urology residency program; no women were on the urology faculty.
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Posted Mar 17, 2014
The cliché “you are what you eat” is easily dismissed as a well-intentioned effort by parents to coax their children to follow a healthy diet. But if intriguing results coming out of ongoing research led by UCLA Urologist William Aronson, MD, are confirmed, parents may be on to something.
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Posted Nov 27, 2013
For the Ugandan woman, as with so many of the other patients seen by Christopher Tarnay, MD, during his annual two-week visits to the East African nation, life had been miserable since a traumatic childbirth experience 20 years prior. On that day she had not only lost her daughter, but suffered a childbirth injury known as obstetric fistula – a hole between the birth passage and the bladder or rectum that leaves women incontinent to urine and stool. View Complete Newsletter >
Posted Sep 06, 2013
When Art Wagner went in for a routine physical in April 2009, the last thing he expected to learn was that he had cancer. Mr. Wagner admits he was motivated to make his first visit to a doctor in about seven years out of vanity. “I had gotten in really good shape and wanted to hear the doctor tell me how well I was doing for a guy in my late 40s,” he recalls.
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Posted Jul 27, 2013
Nellie Lopez had known about the stone residing in her right kidney for 40 years. The 70-year-old Los Angeles resident had first been told about it when she was hospitalized in her native Peru for a stone in her left kidney. The first stone was resolved, and Ms. Lopez was advised not to worry about the second stone, which was small and high in her right kidney.
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Posted Mar 19, 2013
During a nine-day stretch in 1998, Alberto and Stacy Valner’s world was turned upside down – twice. First came news that Mr. Valner’s mother, who was in her late 50s, had an aggressive and terminal form of cancer. Barely more than a week later, Mr. Valner himself was diagnosed with Stage 4 testicular cancer. His chances of survival were placed at 50/50. He was only 36.
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Posted Dec 13, 2012
If you didn’t know any better, you might have thought the party held at the home of Fern and Ross Bloom was a typical gathering of close friends – approximately 20 families laughing, mingling and catching up on each other’s lives. But this was no ordinary party: These 20 families had been strangers until they were brought together by extraordinary circumstances. In each case, one of the family members had desperately needed a kidney transplant to resume a normal life, but spouses and other relatives willing to donate were incompatible.
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Posted Oct 16, 2012
Robert Meier had torn his rotator cuff and was preparing for shoulder surgery in September 2008 when he received some unexpected news: The routine blood work that had been ordered prior to the operation revealed that his prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level had risen from 4 to 6. “The doctor said this wasn’t normal, and that I should see a urologist after the shoulder surgery,” says Mr. Meier, a 58-year-old high school visual arts teacher in Visalia, CA.
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Posted June 11, 2012
As recently as 2005, patients with advanced kidney cancer could be offered only one FDA-approved treatment – a drug so toxic it required hospitalization, and was effective in only a small percentage of patients. In the seven years since, seven new drugs have been approved. Known as targeted therapies, they not only shrink or slow the growth of the tumor, but they can be taken on an outpatient basis with far fewer side effects.
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Posted Jan 26, 2012
Ben Armentrout-Wiswall is discussing how he and his husband, Tom, came to adopt their three children when he is momentarily interrupted by the need to address a misadventure involving their 2-year-old. “Augustus likes to climb in the other kids’ wheelchairs,” Ben says upon returning to the conversation. “Then he buckles the seatbelt and can’t get out.” There’s nothing unusual about a father of three young children experiencing difficulty getting through a discussion without frequent timeouts to attend to his kids’ needs. But the wheelchairs in the Armentrout-Wiswall home signify that this family is anything but typical.
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Posted Jan 06, 2011
Transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) has long been the mainstay of surgical treatment for benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), a common condition affecting older men in which the enlarged prostate produces bothersome urinary symptoms. But the last decade has seen the introduction of less invasive alternatives to TURP, with the potential for equal results.
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Posted June 16, 2010
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