The idea of establishing the U-Merge Association developed over a long time. I have personally worked for many years in several different countries and, especially in emerging economies. I encountered a serious lack of standards, education and institutional support. There is a serious global need in urology for knowledge transfer from West to East, and from North to South.
There remains a serious discrepancy between experts willing to teach and urologists ready to absorb the knowledge on one hand, and the reality of poor educational systems associated with a weak knowledge transfer on the other hand. Eager as they may be, many national urological associations and societies lack the strength and resources to carve new paths through these difficulties.
The aim of this new society aims at exactly that, namely fostering knowledge transfer from affluent to less fortunate countries enabling urologists to learn, reach and adhere to worldwide accepted medical, technical and ethical standards.
The idea grew ever stronger by discussions with experts from both, developed as well as developing countries. It was likewise appreciated and welcomed by both sides.
I appreciate that there are a lot of individuals and individual initiatives out there already, but If we were all to join forces and form a global core group of interested colleagues, band together and share a common goal, then we could achieve far more than the sum of each one’s personal efforts.
We are now in process of finalizing the organizational model of the society and constructing its legal establishment as a scientific and educational body.
We want your support, we value your input and we look forward to meeting you in our events, to reach those goals and move on to new challenges for the scientific progress of our sector and the improvement of the standard of living of our patients all across the globe.