9) EPZ-6438 order attending the urodynamic and voiding dysfunctions meetings were asked to complete the same evaluation of the study before and after a 2-day course on voiding dysfunctions. The median time of urological practice for this senior group was 9.7 ± 4.7 years. The course consisted of stating
basic hydrodynamic principles with interpretation of results and their therapeutic consequences as well as pathophysiology of BPH. Attendants were questioned about the reasons that led them to improve urodynamic knowledge. First, they were asked to point out the main and sole reason to attend the course and after that, to provide as many reasons as they judged important to attend the course. The responses were clustered to five final categories that encompassed all kind of responses. Studied participants were also questioned about the availability of urodynamic studies in their region as well as if Ganetespib mouse they rely on the result of the test performed by a third-part. Paired questionnaires before and after the courses/training period were used to assess the impact of learning the urodynamic exam. Participants were
asked about their confidence in doing the study and interpreting the traces themselves and their capacity to set up the equipment, analyze the flow curves and pressure traces, write down a report and diagnose obstruction. Attendants were also asked if the volume of the prostate gland was decisive for the indication of TURP and what would be the limit to perform TURP or trans-vesical prostatectomy. Similarly, 13 regularly used parameters to indicate surgical therapy were ranked before and after the course as an indication if the course changed the urologist’s perception of the importance of any of these parameters and their weight to the decision to point infravesical obstruction. In the
same manner they were asked if they would use urodynamic studies before any surgical therapies for BPH. One hundred percent of the junior urologists completed the pre- and post-fellowship questionnaires due to close proximity of the candidates with the authors. Although the same direct effort was done for the meeting urologists, 45 questionnaires were not totally completed (27 cases did not complete the post-meeting questionnaires, nine did not answer one or more item, eight ranked nearly the parameters incorrectly and one was missed). The fellowship-urologists elected to have urodynamic specialization for different reasons (Fig. 1) with 54.7% of them referring to voiding dysfunctions as an inappropriately learned issue of urology and perceived it as “too important to be overlooked” (45.3%), while 26.5% stated they did not feel confident to interpret the graphics. When more than one option was allowed the scenario became even worse as confidence in performing the exam revealed a higher rate of perception of inappropriate training (85.5%) as the main reason to extend learning besides the lack of confidence to interpret the graphics (81.