Prof. Joan Palou, Director of the Urology Department at the Puigvert Foundation in Barcelona and former chair of the European School of Urology has won the 2025 Wickham Award. The prize has been awarded annually since 2018 for significant contributions to robotic urology.
Prof. Peter Wiklund presented Prof. Palou with the prize, hailing his accomplishments in the field: “Joan is an early adopter of robotic surgery, as well as a pioneer in robotic training and education.”
“As chair of the Puigvert Foundation, a major urology centre that was also incredibly successful academically, Joan popularised robotic urology and its adoption in Europe. Through the Foundation there was also extensive collaboration with South American urologists in CAU. Through ERUS and the ESU he also published a lot of scientific work in robotics, and robotic training became centralised.”
“We started robotics almost at the same time, the early 2000s. He was one of the first surgeons to start with the robotic cystectomy. First the cysto-prostatectomy and lymph nodes, robotically, and then opening up the patient to do the neobladder extracorporeally. At several early robotic meetings we worked together demonstrating the complete procedure intracorporeally.”
ERUS Chair Prof. Breda, who works closely with Prof. Palou in Barcelona: “Prof. Palou deserves this, he is a pioneer of cystectomy and urothelial cancer in Europe, in general, both open and robotic. We are very happy to give this acknowledgement to him, he contributed so much, to the world of urology particularly urothelial cancer, radical cystectomies, and robotic surgery.”
Prof. Palou was “humbled and grateful to be recognised by a big family like ERUS. In my 40 years as a urologist I’ve seen every development from open to robotic urology. It is important to pay attention to other people’s innovations. Also, persistence: you might be motivated for a short time but you need persistence to follow through. Thank you to my team and to my family.”
Wickham Award
Prof. Palou joins previous Wickham Award winners Prof. Vito Pansadoro (2024) Prof. Prokar Dasgupta (2023) Dr. Richard Gaston (2022), Prof. Alexandre Mottrie (2021) Prof. Walter Artibani (2019) and Prof. Claude Abbou (2018). The award is given on an annual basis, honouring surgeons who have made a significant contribution to robotic surgery. The prize consists of a medal featuring an engraving of John Wickham’s likeness. No winner was announced in 2020 due to the virtual nature of ERUS20.
The award is named after John Wickham (1927-2017), a true pioneer of robotic surgery. Together with Prof. Brian Davies of Imperial College, Wickham developed and engineered the first robotic device in urological surgery named the PROBOT. Wickham used the PROBOT to perform the very first robotic procedure on the prostate in London in April of 1991. He coined the phrase “minimally-invasive surgery” to describe the future of the field. Mr. Wickham passed away in late 2017, at the age of 89.
