Greeting

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic situation, Japanese Urological Association (JUA) annual meeting usually held in April has been rescheduled to December. Therefore, the board meeting was held on April 27 apart from JUA annual meeting. There, I was appointed as the new President of the JUA. I am honored to be a president and I feel it sobering. I will do my best to contribute to the progress of JUA.

As you know, Japan is famous for aging of the population. Urology is getting more and more important for Japanese people. Due to importance of urology, the number of the members of JUA is now more than 9000. Urology is a highly professional surgical department, but also has medical characteristics. Japanese urologists cover a lot of fields such as surgery of urological cancers, kidney transplantation, hemodialysis, urinary tract infection, endocrine disorder, voiding disorder, sexual dysfunction, and pediatric urology. In JUA, there are 15 committees of specialized fields to assist the effective and smooth operation of this association. Based on the fact that Urology requires high expertise and diversity, JUA has been contributing to the welfare of the Japanese people through the promotion of basic and/or clinical research and the development of advanced medical technologies.

JUA is already recognized as a core academic association defined by the Medical Specialist Organization. For training urologists, JUA has established a steady and well-designed education program through which all the urologists can play active parts in urological field and contribute to the development of the association. Educational contents uploaded on the JUA website and educational programs during the annual meeting are made by the experts and opinion leaders in each specialized area. By these educational activities, we can hopefully cultivate talented urologists who will bear the next generation in terms of urological clinics and researches.

Along with the development of the JUA, we are getting more and more internationalized. Young urologists who make their presentation and more experienced urologists who chair the session at the international meetings have been increasing. Without doubt, the clinical and academic level of Japanese urologists are highly evaluated by other countries. The International Journal of Urology (IJU), the official journal of the Urological Association of Asia (UAA), published from JUA has got the impact factor over 2.4 recently with the great help of editorial members. We have also launched IJU Case Reports for young urologists to experience publishing case report papers in English. We hope more and more young urologists succeed world-wide.

Professor Mototsugu Oya, the previous JUA President, decided to join the National Clinical Database (NCD) project taking over cancer registry project by the JUA. Registry of NCD is linked to mandatory requirement of educational institutes approved by the Medical Specialist Organization. Joining the NCD project may help figuring out actual status of urological treatment and may lead to the improvement of the urological quality in Japan. We are now planning to utilize the accumulated data in the NCD for some activities such as establishing risk calculator or investigator-initiated researches.

As described above, I would like to do my best in managing the JUA so that all the Japanese urologists can play active parts in academic and clinical fields at home and abroad with high expertise through the activities of the JUA.

Norio Nonomura, Professor and Chairman

Department of Urology, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine