LUGPA's 2020 Annual Meeting Recap

A Message from Program Chair, Dr. Evan Goldfischer

     

Though we couldn’t meet in person this year, our two-day virtual meeting was jam-packed. We exchanged ideas, heard valuable insights, and discussed solutions to enhance, improve, and grow our individual groups. The opportunity for LUGPA members to convene annually was the reason for our foundation and it remains one of the most valuable aspects of our organization. This year’s theme was Facing the Future Together – which is quite timely as we face the challenges ahead amid the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 600 registered for the meeting and approximately 400 attended the event live and on demand so far. We could not have done it without all of your hard work and participation.  

Day 1 Highlights

     

We kicked things off with an introduction from our emcee, Dr. Goldfischer, to talk about our first ever virtual annual meeting and addressed the need to adjust to a “new normal.” After Dr. Goldfischer’s wise words, Dr. Sandip Prasad and Dr. Katie Murray led an industry symposium presented by UroGen and Jelmyto on expanding kidney-sparing options for patients with low-grade Upper Tract Urothelial Cancer.

 

     
       

Day 1 ended with our Exhibit Hall Kick Off and Virtual Beer Tasting. The exhibit hall allowed participants to engage with our valued exhibitors’ booths for the latest in innovative products, services, and offerings to help us provide the best possible care for our patients. In addition to the exhibit hall, we held a virtual beer tasting hosted by Tim Langley from Halftime Beverage and sponsored by Pathnostics. Throughout and after, we got a chance to connect with our colleagues through the virtual social lounge.

 

Day 2 Highlights

     

Dr. Evan Goldfischer began Saturday’s session with welcoming remarks and an overview of the day’s agenda, including updates from the LUGPA president, health policy committee, benchmarking committee, a keynote speech, and several breakout sessions.

     

Following Dr. Goldfischer’s introduction, our outgoing president, Dr. Richard Harris, shared his view on the silver linings from the past months for the LUGPA community. He shared how the organization was able to combat this challenging time to conserve independent medicine from a policy standpoint and his gratitude to our members for a wonderful two years as LUGPA president. A key takeaway: LUGPA is more dedicated than ever to advocating for the maintenance of independent urology practices and acting as a resource for all our members to best navigate the current situation.

Dr. Harris also discussed how healthcare policy reform is essential to advancing the practice of independent urology during the pandemic, and the need stay up-to-date on the latest in this arena. Following his presidential remarks, our political affairs and policy experts, including Dr. Deepak Kapoor and Dr. Gary Kirsh gave an informative update on LUGPA’s political affairs and health policy efforts followed by a live Q&A portion.

 

     

Next on the program, we held the Practice Benchmarking Update session moderated by our incoming president Dr. Jonathan Henderson and Cass Schaedig, VP of IntrinsiQ Specialty Solutions. They provided invaluable information on what benchmarking is, the different types of benchmarking, and how they can be used to ultimately improve upon our practices.

This segment of our program also opened the floor to attendees to participate in a live Q&A with Dr. Henderson and Cass Schaedig to further discuss the practice of benchmarking.

Following the benchmarking Q&A, our keynote speaker, Jim Craig, spoke to our members on the timely subject of actively seeking change. A Key Takeaway: “Your biggest enemy can be success unless you’re committed to driving change; not just embracing change.”

     

Jim spoke about the need to find ways to navigate through this difficult time in order to prevail on top. He spoke about aligning your moral compass, seeking and accepting challenges, embracing failure, adopting new work habits, and maintaining a positive attitude through it all.

His words of encouragement were a testament to his experience as the heart and soul of the 1980 U.S. Olympic Hockey team and rang true throughout the LUGPA community.

After Jim’s speech, we announced an overview of the clinical and non-clinical breakout sessions that were available to attendees.

     

The clinical breakout session was moderated by past LUGPA president, Dr. Neal Shore. Updates on non-muscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) therapies were presented by Dr. Ashish Kamat, Dr. Noah Hahn, and Dr. Sam Chang. They each discussed a variety of topics such as BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) shortages, the future of NMIBC, and the high-risk nature of systemic immunotherapy for NMIBC.

Several non-clinical sessions were available to attendees to address common issues and areas of interest for the LUGPA community.

     

Managing an angry patient is not always the easiest task at hand. Dr. Tobey Williams a well-versed medical malpractice defense attorney, and Nick Reiwer provided exceptional advice on how to handle this situation. The shared expertise and experiences on preventing a situation from escalating and how to best rectify a problem with an angry patient.

 

     

Our next non-clinical breakout session was presented by LUGPA Forward’s Dr. Tim Richardson, Dr. Josh Langston, Dr. Robert Jansen, and Audrey Barker, MBA, FAAPPR. The presentation focused on providing tips on recruiting young urologists to LUGPA practices.

 

     

‘Our Open-Mic – What Keeps You Up at Night’ breakout session was presented by Dr. Bryan Mehlaff.

LUGPA member, Carla Blue, presented a breakout session on implementing the best retirement strategies at your practice featuring Dr. Nicholas Westfall. They focused on urology practices and talked through developing the best plan for a smooth transition into retirement for the physician and the practice.

 

     

Our final non-clinical breakout session discussed cybersecurity and compliance protection. This presentation was given by Mark Greene, the co-founder of Stryker Networks LLC. His session touched on topics like HIPAA horror stories, the importance of preventing cyber-attacks, phishing, and more. 

 

     

Dr. Goldfischer then provided us with closing remarks, giving a big thank you to our members for your valued support in the past, present and future and joining us virtually for the event. We hope to see you at our other regional meetings in the future and of course, at next year’s meeting.

 


Gaming and Trivia Prize Winners Announced
LUGPA offered chances to win three unique Chicago-based prizes to those who attended the 2020 Annual Meeting. Here are the individuals who won!

  

 

It’s never too early to mark your calendars for next year’s meeting! The 2021 Annual Meeting will be held at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile Hotel, November 12-13, 2021. Visit lugpa.org/events for more information on other future events.

LUGPA members can review all the presentations and from this meeting in the archive. Visit lugpa.org /presentation-archive to access them.

 

Social Media Highlights - #LUGPA2020

 Industry partners and media alike were busy on Twitter during the conference. Here are a few highlights:

 

Exhibitors & Sponsors:

 

 

Media:

 

Conference Media Coverage (as of November 11, 2020)

 

 


LUGPA's 2020 Annual Meeting is brought to you by: