Skip to content

Other ways to search: Events Calendar | UTHSC News

Department of Urology

The Department of Urology at The University of Tennessee Health Science Center's mission is to be recognized as a Center of Excellence in Urology through the promotion of education, research, patient care, and service to the professional and public community.

Educational Philosophy

Core faculty photo
Left to right: Anthony Patterson, MD, Nikhil Gopal, MD, Robert Wake, MD (chair), John Carraher, MD, Ava Saidian, MD, and Christopher Ledbetter, MD

The educational philosophy of the department is that resident and medical student teaching is of the highest priority and that this teaching should occur primarily in the context of active clinical experience in a variety of patient care settings which expose residents to the full spectrum of urologic disease. The education of the resident should be sufficiently structured to gradually increase the resident's responsibility for more complex aspects of urologic care as skills are developed, so that graduating senior residents are fully competent in the medical and surgical aspects of urology.

It is further our philosophy that the education should take place in an environment that both exposes the residents to modern clinical and scientific advances in urology (through conferences and reading assignments) and in an environment where residents are exposed to and participate in urologic research so that they become critical analysts of data imbued with healthy skepticism. With this philosophy and exposure, we expect our graduating residents to, at a minimum, be fully competent in the medical and surgical aspects of urologic disease and to be eager life-long learners of the science and art of urology. It is our philosophy that urologic education should take place in an environment where the faculty role models compassionately demonstrate the art, as well as the science, of medicine.

History of UTHSC Urology
Nov 5, 2024