The EAU Robotic Urology Section prides itself on hosting Europe’s most important annual meeting on robotic urology, presenting delegates from all over the world with the latest technical developments, opportunities for training and live surgical demonstrations by experts.
For 2021, ERUS hopes to meet in Dusseldorf together with the German Society of Robotic Urology (DRUS), as initially planned for last year. The pandemic forced ERUS20 to go virtual but organisers are optimistic about ERUS-DRUS21 as the meeting is formally titled.
This also marks the first ERUS meeting under the leadership of Dr. Alberto Breda (Barcelona, ES), who took over as ERUS Chairman from Prof. Mottrie (Aalst, BE), who had been its Chairman since ERUS joined the EAU in 2011. We spoke to Prof. Breda about the upcoming meeting:
“The ERUS meetings have always been very well attended and the involvement of all the faculty has always been one of the main strengths of the meeting. I will be sure to keep working this way, to give space to the surgeons, the principal leaders of the ERUS.”
ERUS-DRUS21 has a three-day scientific programme from 11-13 November. The meeting has a special programme for nurses (see page 48), for young urologists, and of course several different courses by the European School of Urology. The bulk of the scientific programme (now available online!) consists of demonstrations of robotic surgery: live and pre-recorded, case discussions, unusual procedures and the latest robotic systems.
Dr. Breda: “Participants will have the opportunity to watch a tremendous amount of live cases. This year we have increased the number of surgeries from 12 to 24 and we have three screens that will show cases simultaneously. Other than this, there will be the possibility to attend different sessions (live and semi-live) on the new robots, including but not limited to Medtronic, CMR and Medicaroid.”
On the prospects of a regular meeting after one and a half years of remote learning, Dr. Breda was carefully optimistic about ERUS-DRUS21 taking place in Dusseldorf.
“I believe people are ready again to come together and discuss robotic urology in a live setting. There is no doubt that remote learning will stay with us in the future, however we, as humans, will always benefit from physical interaction. We are of course dependent on whatever restrictions local authorities will place on events, but as it stands, we are carefully optimistic that we can welcome audiences in Dusseldorf this November.”
- The ERUS-DRUS21 abstract submission deadline is 1 October 2021, 23:59:59 CET
