Ten years after the founding of ÜCD, we are once again looking back at the past. Looking back at AGEP towards the 2010s, it becomes much clearer why and how ÜCD reached this point. AGEP is the most important document showing what successful results can be achieved by managing a non-governmental organization on a project basis. All we need to do is read, research, understand, and implement this process that has been developing for 10 years. AGEP is definitely not a product that emerged spontaneously in one day. It is the result of individuals’ years of accumulated experience, the implementation of these experiences as projects within ÜCD, and the step-by-step evaluation and development of the project (the application of Deming’s quality circle, who received the Nobel Prize in Economics, “Plan – Do – Check – Analyze”).

Individuals’ experience:

Between 2000 and 2010, Serdar Tekgül started organizing Assistant Training Meetings at the Ankara Urologists Association. These meetings continued for years with the regular participation of almost all educational institutions in Ankara. In fact, meeting CDs were sent to other educational institutions in the country, attracting the attention of assistants in those institutions as well. However, the project ended due to various conditions and, unfortunately, the lack of a corporate ownership culture.

In addition, Serdar Tekgül launched the Urology School project within the Turkish Urology Association. In this project, approximately 100 assistants received camp-style training with their professors for 4 days in out-of-town locations such as Kızılcahamam, Gölcük, and Uludağ. Approximately 20-25 professors gave lectures on every topic of urology, and they presented their presentations to the assistants in the form of booklets. An exam was also held on the last day of the camp. Unfortunately, this project also ended around 2008.

Even a good product has a very low probability of being “Sustainable” in our country. Especially the concept of “Sustainable development” is an almost impossible strategy. Unfortunately, the planned approach in centralized standardized assistant training was a forgotten concept by the 2010s.

Adil Esen, one of the founders of ÜCD and who contributed to its reaching the 2020s, became the chairman of the Turkish Urology Qualification Board accreditation subcommittee in 2006. During his chairmanship, the accreditation conditions handbook was finalized. Accreditation visit criteria were determined, and the training of boards that would evaluate the criteria and grant assistant training accreditation was completed. In 2008, for the first time in Turkish Urology history, an institution received a national research assistant accreditation certificate. When Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Urology Department reported that it complied with the accreditation conditions sent to them, an accreditation evaluation board, including Adil Esen, visited the Department. After objectively determining that it met the accreditation evaluation conditions, Cerrahpaşa Medical Faculty Urology Department was granted a national accreditation certificate. Then, Çapa Medical Faculty Urology Department received the same certificate. Of course, the Turkish Urology Qualification Board was also one of the endless victims of the concept of unsustainability in our country. As we explained in detail in the previous sections, the board became unable to function due to the problems within Turkish Urology. What was done took its place in history.

The experiences of Serdar Tekgül, Adil Esen, and other faculty members, who were among the founders of ÜCD, were transferred to ÜCD. A faculty member has 3 main duties: Education, Research, and Clinical Service. As conditions change over the years, the importance of the 3 service items may change. However, a person using the title of faculty member must fulfill these 3 elements. Education is perhaps the most important parameter. Their views on this subject are for their readers.

After the establishment of ÜCD, its branching out, and the start of academic meetings, in other words, immediately after the birth of ÜCD, the topic of assistant training came to the agenda of the board of directors in 2012. As we explained in the previous sections, the “Online Assistant Training Project” and the “Training the Urologists of the Future” projects were implemented.

The Future Urologists Are Being Trained project is an innovative project for our country’s urology, organized according to active training principles including senior assistants during a certain period of the year. However, it did not cover all assistants and did not offer a comprehensive approach to urology assistant training. In other words, there was a gap in education.

This gap continued between 2014 and 2017. Let’s learn the rest of the story from the young people themselves:

Hüseyin Eren;

“As I was the Faculty Member Responsible for Education at Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, I was trying to make some innovations. I said to myself, “You have to solve this,” and set out. I downloaded and examined the TUKMOS Core Education Program. I saw that a theoretical and practical training curriculum suitable for TUKMOS was made in ENT in our faculty. I tried to prepare a theoretical and practical training curriculum and assistant report card suitable for urology from Campbell and TUKMOS during a summer vacation. For days, I tried to create an example of an assistant training report card by visiting the websites of other associations and the websites of Turkey’s well-established universities. I lamented to myself why these were not available in urology when I found them in other associations. I made a lot of progress on my own, but something was missing, and my experience was insufficient in this regard. I had brainstorming sessions on how to handle this, and I decided that this could only be done through an association. I was coming to the 2017 Urooncology congress on the same plane with İlke Onur Kazaz. I brought up this issue to İlke and asked “whether they had an assistant training report card at KTÜ”. He told me that “they had a draft but it was insufficient”. I told him that “I would bring up this issue in the association”. He asked, “Who are you going to talk to?” I had Adil Esen in mind, who was in constant contact with me due to the pilot assistant program in 2017. “I am thinking of talking to Adil hoca,” I said. İlke had worked with Adil hoca for about 3 months due to education and knew him very well. He turned to me and said, “Are you sure? Look, if we bring up this issue to Adil hoca, we won’t be able to get rid of this job, he will definitely involve us in the event”. We laughed among ourselves. We caught Adil hoca at the congress at one point and brought up this issue to him. “Children, I have a meeting, I will call you in 2 hours,” he said. İlke turned to me and said, “I told you, this job is up to us”. Then Adil hoca called me and told me to take İlke and come to the lobby. Serdar Tekgül and Şaban Sarıkaya were waiting for us in the lobby. “Children, tell me what you want here now,” he said. “Hocam, YÖK wants an assistant report card from us. Are we going to do something as an association?” I asked, and the whole event suddenly flared up at that moment.“

Adil Esen started planning the process with the experiences he gained from being involved in the Dokuz Eylül Medical Faculty active education project, the experiences of the national accreditation subcommittee, and the information about the projects led by Serdar Tekgül.

Education, especially assistant education, must be structured on objective, measurable, and scientific rules. These studies, which require a special motivation, excitement, and have no financial return, have found a place within ÜCD, and AGEP has developed. AGEP, the apple of ÜCD’s eye, took shape with the logo drawn by Aydın Mungan.

In line with the principle mentioned above, Adil Esen decided to form the group with members consisting of Volkan İzol from Çukurova Medical Faculty, Hüseyin Tarhan from Tepecik Training and Research Hospital, İlke Onur Kazaz from Karadeniz Technical University, Hüseyin Eren from Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University, and Aydın Mungan from Bülent Ecevit University.

With the narration of the last member of the founding group, Volkan Şen;

“There was a regional meeting of the Urological Surgery Association in Adana. I could never adjust my program to attend the previous regional meetings, but when the topic was Adana and gourmet experience, I especially wanted to attend. That day, we arrived in Adana with the team coming from İzmir on the morning flight. When we arrived at the hotel, there were still 4 hours until the meeting time, and we started looking for breakfast. When we were told that breakfast could be available on the conference hall floor of the hotel, we went there and saw a team holding a meeting, we were going to greet our teacher Adil Hoca from the door of the room and leave, but our teacher, thank God, directly said, Volkancım, come and sit :). I had no idea about the meeting and I was just trying to understand what was being talked about and what was being aimed at during the meeting. As we talked, one thing led to another, and I was starting to become more familiar with the subject. When the meeting ended, we decided what we should do in subgroups. As the first step, we decided to create a new, up-to-date, and standard Urology curriculum using TUKMOS, ÜCD board of directors core curriculum, Campbell Urology Book, European Urology Association, and American Urology Association current guidelines. Hüseyin Tarhan, Hüseyin Eren, İlke Onur Kazaz, Volkan Şen, and of course our indispensable Merve Yıldırım took part in the creation of the urology curriculum by working 14 hours every day, from Friday to Sunday, in Trabzon and Istanbul, every 2 and 3 weeks. We were just starting to realize that more difficult tasks were waiting for us as we finished each task. The curriculum was sent to 32 Academic centers to get their suggestions. All the suggestions received were carefully examined and the curriculum was revised. Just as the curriculum was ready, a very nice suggestion came from our teacher Şaban Sarıkaya (ÜCD term president): To revise the prepared 834 learning objectives according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. With this excellent suggestion, all learning objectives were immediately distributed to the entire group, and our curriculum became stronger by being revised. I got along perfectly with the AGEP group that I happened to join, everyone putting their hand under the stone, taking ownership of all the work, and working with an unprecedented team spirit were the most important factors in keeping the motivation of the entire team dynamic.”

The project was named the Research Assistant Training Program (AGEP). The secret to AGEP’s success lies in its ability to transform individual drops into an ocean as a team. (Note: This is the opinion of the author, Adil Esen.)

It is recommended that future generations read the AGEP story to understand the “Team concept”.

The urology curriculum was eveloped in about 3 and a half months. The curriculum table was watched by the AGEP group with the pleasure of a Rembrandt painting. It was truly a very enjoyable situation. By early July, the curriculum was available, but there were no lectures recorded. The training period was going to start on September 15, 2018. The time was very short, the unknowns were too many, the road ahead was long, but their belief in what they would do and the fact that the group had a complete team spirit were the biggest guarantee of success. Adil Esen called the teachers across the country one by one to explain the 90 lectures. As a result of 93 calls, 90 professor agreed to explain the lectures they deemed appropriate.

During the filming of the lessons, some amusing anecdotes occurred; during the Istanbul shoot, it was noticed that a teacher had prepared a second lesson in addition to his own. It turned out that he had prepared the other lecture in great detail when the lecture he was supposed to give was over and he continued his presentation. İlke Onur Kazaz, who was going to give the lecture, liked the presentation and decided to give up his own lecture at that moment. In the shooting in Ankara, the tie was provided to the teacher who was going to give the lecture by the AGEP group. Despite taking all the details into consideration during the shootings filming?, there were also shooting filming?, errors. For example, the sounds of cutlery were heard in the background while watching the video lectures.

Let’s learn the continuation of the shootings from Hüseyin Eren.

“Our project took shape and came to life with successive meetings. I took part in Istanbul for the first shooting. I was on vacation on the day of the shoot, and I had broken my right front tooth the day before I came. With the help of a dentist, I glued my tooth with great difficulty, jumped on the plane, and went to Istanbul. We started shooting with Volkan Şen. We finished the day without any serious problems and went back to enjoy my vacation in the evening. There would be shootings in Ankara 1 week later, and I would be giving a lecture. I was very excited while preparing the lecture I was going to give. I was caught in the flood of AGEP. I was getting complaints from my wife and children while working for the lecture shooting throughout the vacation. I was having difficulty explaining AGEP to my non-doctor wife, but I was telling her that we would produce a good product. Finally, I had come to Ankara for the shooting filming?. İlke had also come from Trabzon for the shootings. There was a hot bagel, tea, and a wonderful breakfast table inside. The shootings had started before me. During the shootings, the door was ringing, the sound of cutlery was coming out, and dogs were barking from outside. We were worried about whether these sounds were being recorded. Eventually, these sounds were recorded, and then the sounds were minimized with devoted work. I was very excited during my own lecture shooting, but I finished the shooting without any problems. I was very happy that I didn’t exceed 40 minutes. The next shootings were done in İzmir, and the lectures from September to November were prepared before the 2018 ÜCD congress. As of September, our first lectures started, and we slowly started to receive appreciation. As a result of a long and arduous effort, the product was produced and shared. Most of the assistants were getting good feedback. We did a hectic work for the remaining lectures at the congress in November, and we were able to shoot all the lectures except one. A great job had been done, and we deserved to celebrate. It was an unforgettable moment for me to be invited to the stage as the AGEP team at the opening of the congress and to receive a certificate of appreciation from our teacher Şaban. Our efforts were honored in front of more than 1000 urologists.”

The 2018-2019 Academic Year started on September 15 with 44 centers and 240 assistants. Task distribution;

• Hüseyin Tarhan, Relations with Education Officers
• Volkan İzol, Monitoring and Revising the Curriculum
• İlke Onur Kazaz, Shooting and Revising Video Lectures
• Hüseyin Eren, Exam Officer
• Volkan Şen, He was a complete joker.

The task of coordinating with the education centers was also Hüseyin Tarhan’s;

“The AGEP process started for me with 229 research assistants and 43 centers in the 2018-2019 period. This team has a job description for everyone.As Adil mentioned, my job is to liaise with the education coordinators and monitor classes.. At first, I didn’t know what would happen and what kind of reactions I would get. Because I was calling the education coordinators and literally complaining about the research assistant friends to their professors. Over time, they got used to me, and I got used to them. In fact, they had started to say that they were worried about whether our lecture listening situation was bad when they answered the phone. Over time, we were adopted and accepted by everyone. Because everyone understood and accepted that our aim was only to contribute to the education of research assistant friends. We had become aware of when the research assistant friends went to paid military service and when they would return. In fact, I could easily say when they would have a wedding and when the honeymoon would end. Coordinating such a high number of research assistants was not easy at all.” The links of the lectures they would take were sent by e-mail every two weeks. When the 15-day period expired, Hüseyin Tarhan contacted the education officers of the research assistants who did not watch the lectures and ensured that they completed the lectures.

The most difficult moment for us had come.

Exam;

Questions were entered into the system, and the technical infrastructure was reorganized. The software was tested before the exam. Everything seemed perfect. On May 30, 2019, exam supervisor Hüseyin Eren came to İzmir, and Adil Esen, Hüseyin Eren, Volkan Şen, Cem Kutluer, and Merve Yıldırım gathered in Adil Esen’s office. At 10:00, the exam link was sent for all departments to enter. Then messages started coming from the whatsapp group, and the phones started ringing. They were all shouting one word. “We can’t enter.” The AGEP Board, which showed the courage to organize nationwide with extremely limited experience, suddenly started to panic. As soon as the errors started, a phone traffic started. On the one hand, we were trying to understand what the problem was, and on the other hand, the education coordinators were being informed. In the following minutes, it started to become clear what the problem was. In the words of software expert Cem Kutluer, the problem was “When you try to get 240 people through a door that can fit 60 people at the same time, no one can enter the door.” Of course, when some of the research assistants returned to their jobs, the load on the website was relieved, and the remaining research assistants started the exam. The education officers of the research assistants who could not enter were contacted one by one, and a new date was determined. Although it was not as expected, everyone was taken to the exam.

Let’s read the May 31 crisis from the pen of exam officer Hüseyin Eren:

“The exams we took on May 31, 2019, during my AGEP journey were the most painful and challenging experienced for me. As the exam supervisor, I was able to get out of that day in one piece with the small touches of my teacher Adil again, the understanding of the education supervisor, and the incredible dedication of Volkan Şen, Cem, and Merve, when I was the target of all the arrows. I am proud to be in this process full of memories and to have produced such a product. I’m so glad you’re here. I love you all very much.”

It was a bad experience for the AGEP group, but they learned what crisis management is. The crisis was transformed into success with the belief and good intentions of the education officers in the AGEP project, the team spirit of the exam audit team, and the motivation. Despite all the problems, the exam was completed successfully. It was once again revealed that a vision that will excite everyone and well-intentioned participants are the most important parameters in success. If you want to see the empty side of the glass, of course, it can be observed from that angle. When criticism is constructive, it contributes to development. It was decided to take all kinds of measures to avoid experiencing the same stress next year. The exam results were sent only to the research assistants themselves and the education supervisor. At the end of the year, a meeting was held with the education supervisor, and certificates were presented to them. The positive feedback from the meeting was truly heartwarming. Everyone on the AGEP board was proud to be a part of the project.

The last three members of the AGEP Board were Burak Argun, Yunus Emre Göğer, and Sıtkı Ün. The fact that Burak Argun is the only specialist with an education doctorate among urologists in Turkey and his belief in education always ensured that he contributed greatly to AGEP. He brought a scientific and systematic perspective to education, rather than empirical approaches such as “I did it, it happened.”, “As a result of my experiences”. Yunus Emre Göğer’s well-intentioned and hardworking approach brought additional energy to the board. Sıtkı Ün contributed to the maturation process of AGEP in the first steps of his urology career.

While the 2018-2019 period ended with the exam, the 2019-2020 period started in July with a two-day evaluation meeting. During 2 days, the entire AGEP project was discussed with 10-12 hour meetings per day. Sub-projects were created. The steps of each sub-project were determined. The person in charge and the “deadline” of each sub-project were determined. All decisions taken at the meeting were recorded. After the meeting, the sub-project managers were sent the sections for which they were responsible.The follow-up and supervision of the entire project belonged to Adil Esen. The most important reason why the AGEP board became a skyscraper accepted throughout the country from the first excavation in the soil in one and a half years was team spirit. Team means mutual trust and respect. From start to finish, the team continued its existence without experiencing any crisis in for two and a half years. During this period, it was a source of sadness that Cem Akbal, who played an important role in the establishment and first steps of both Üropedia and AGEP, had to take a break due to his work. It should be stated once again that Cem Akbal has always had an effort that will be remembered in AGEP.

Thanks to Aydın Mungan, who planned the AGEP T-shirts at the Urological Surgery Congress, we had a complete team appearance.

Hüseyin Tarhan’s comment for the 2019-2020 academic year:

“The 2018-2019 period was our apprenticeship period. The 2019-2020 period started with 58 centers and 350 research assistant colleagues. The success we showed in the program the previous year had begun to bear fruit. Now, research assistant colleagues were putting pressure on their professors in their centers and wanted to be included in AGEP. Everyone had accepted and understood that our aim was only quality and structured education. In addition, we had an opening abroad. Somali Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Training and Research Hospital was included in the AGEP program.”

The 2019-2020 Academic Year started on September 1. AGEP’s awareness had increased throughout the country. 58 Departments of Anatomy and training clinics decided to participate in the training. 14 more centers joined the program compared to the previous year. There was no tendency to leave in any center. In fact, some departments of anatomy made a decision from their academic boards that AGEP was their official research assistant training program. They also had it approved by the academic board of the Faculties of Medicine. Documents are presented in the appendix that the Faculties of Medicine of Çukurova University, Namık Kemal University, Ahi Evran University, Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Karadeniz Technical University, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University have accepted AGEP as the official training program.

When we came to March 2020, the world suddenly entered a brand new process. “The Covid process”. Until that moment, the fact that the course viewing rate exceeded 90% was considered insufficient and education officers and research assistants were actively contacted. During the Covid process, standard health services in hospitals were stopped. Polyclinics were allocated for the diagnosis of potential Covid patients. Services were also allocated to the treatment of only infected patients under the name of pandemic service. Surgeries were canceled except for very urgent cases. Research assistants were obliged to take shifts in pandemic polyclinics and services. This situation put them in a very risky situation in terms of transmission. Naturally, the anxiety and worry coefficient increased in all of them. In the face of this situation brought about by the conditions, the AGEP Board decided to suspend the follow-up process of the training. Research assistants who wanted to could watch video lessons whenever they wanted. The AGEP group would also test the level at which the system was working without additional intervention. 3. By the end of the third month, seeing that the viewing rates had exceeded 90% made the AGEP group extremely happy. . In fact, when it was noticed that a research assistant at İbn-i Sina Faculty of Medicine had not watched the lessons for 2 months, they questioned the situation and learned that the research assistant was Covid positive. Association president Aydın Mungan called him and conveyed his best wishes. 18. While the lessons ended in May 2020, the exam date, which had been prepared for 1 year, was approaching. Preparations were made throughout the year in order not to experience the crisis experienced 1 year ago once again. The software was completely renewed, a new server was rented, and the exam was prepared on the server that was currently in use as a backup. After the preparations, a test for 1000 people was applied. The Exam questions were selected and finalized in February. However, when the Covid process emerged, it became impossible to gather research assistants in a hall. For this reason, it was decided to hold the exam in such a way that each research assistant could take it at home. Of course, the exam committee would also provide supervision from their locations.

As you can see in the photo, the exam was supervised and managed together from Rize, İzmir and Ankara. 341 research assistants took the exam in 57 centers. The exam really ended at 19:30 without any problems. When 19:30 was reached, the team had started the celebrations. However, when Volkan Şen noticed that an assistant was entering answers even though it was 19:32 on his screen , the whole group was suddenly surprised. They panicked when they were able to enter another answer at 19:34. The system was immediately shut down. Later, it was understood that the command to stop the exam at 19:30 was not working in the software. This went down in history as a crisis that no research assistant or education supervisors noticed. The 2019-2020 academic year ended with the exam. The AGEP group was extremely happy with the incredible point reached in a period of 2 and a half years. Einstein’s words “Imagination is more important than knowledge” were ringing in their ears.

The project, whose first seed was planted in a congress lobby in 2017, had become a tree whose branches reached every point of the country in 1 and a half years. Of course, if the tree needed to be fed, pruned and watered, it was necessary to constantly take care of and put effort into the AGEP project.

The tree was giving new buds;

Virtual anatomy training, practical endoscopy training, complementary education, modules were started in 2019-2020.

• Practical training officers; Burak Argun and Volkan İzol
• Virtual anatomy training officers; Hüseyin Tarhan, Volkan Şen and Yunus Emre Göğer
• Complementary education module; Volkan Şen

The sub-projects mentioned above had started to be carried out as a pilot project a year ago. An important part of the Future Urologists Are Being Trained meeting, which was created in 2014-2015, was allocated to the “AGEP Endoscopic Practical Training” meeting. As in previous meetings, active theoretical training continued at the meeting. Let’s read the meeting from the pen of Burak Argun, one of the planners:

“When we held the AGEP/ Future Urologists Are Being Trained practical training at the Hotel in Tuzla, we set up 10 stations and created a list of 15 trainers, each consisting of people who were interested in this business and were competent in ureteroscopy and laparoscopy, at each station. ÜCD provided us with unconditional support regarding the transfer and participation of these trainers. As the AGEP team, we started by preparing a technical training sheet consisting of countless visuals in order to take the structured training curriculum of ureteroscopy and cystoscopy to the next level. We sent the sheet, which we prepared as a total of 26 pages, to our assistant colleagues online again, and we performed a structured OSCE for the first time by subjecting them to a theoretical exam before the practical training. In this exam, which we planned as a timed exam format exam, we performed the first national-based OSCE by setting up stations containing almost all the devices used in Ureteroscopy and adding real-life simulations (such as the management of broken and faulty ureteroscopy devices) while adhering to the sheet. We provided structured Cystoscopy-Ureteroscopy curriculum and also Laparoscopy basic training without a structured curriculum on a total of 10 stations (8 Laparoscopy and 2 URS and Holmium Laser lithotripsy) to a total of 37 Assistant colleagues. If I may say so, the fact that each assistant colleague was allocated exactly 30 minutes at each station and a total of two and a half hours was allocated at 5 stations in the timed exam format , carried the returns of the course to a different point. While planning the next year by supporting this structured ureteroscopy training and exam with a structured laparoscopy sheet, our experience of COVİD 19 and the pandemic process made it impossible for us to implement practical training. We wanted to create a laparoscopy sheet and then turn it into an online platform, which we will share on an online platform like the ureteroscopy and cystoscopy sheet, which also includes short surgery videos. In summary, the sheet, which was initially 16 pages, turned into a 66-page sheet at the end of the day. We also wanted surgeons to share their practical knowledge, which we call ”Tips and Tricks”, which are not in the textboxes, in this sheet. Volkan İzol conveyed his practical knowledge to us in detail in the sheet. To ensure that it was specific to AGEP and to avoid copyright issues, I did not share any images that were not original. I would also like to thank all my nurses and surgeons who set up a team that informed me that those devices were opened in the operating room because some operating materials were expensive materials, and sent me the original pictures after the devices were photographed, or waited for me to photograph them before using them. We prepared Cystoscopy-ureteroscopy and laparoscopy sheets by taking more than 650 photos in total. . Our goal was for our colleagues, who will become specialists after their residency, to at least be familiar with the materials used in the clinics they will go to and to have sufficient technical and clinical knowledge.

After the AGEP board of directors decided to publish the sheets as a book, it was planned to create Endoscopic Instrumentation Vol 1 by establishing a team consisting of our friends who were not only from the AGEP board of directors but also helped us in theFuture Urologists Training practical training course, in order to further enrich these sheets and create different perspectives. In this Volume, instrumentation and device information about Cystoscopy ureteroscopy and laparoscopy will be shared. In Volume 2, it is planned to create a technical book about TUR, PNL and robotic Surgery instrumentation and devices as an AGEP product, not only at our assistant colleagues but also at our specialist colleagues “

Change must be carried out with measurements. Those that will take place with measurements can be evaluated as “development”. The Future Urologists Training meetings, as stated on the previous pages, were a very innovative project in the year they were created, but 4 years later, they had become a project that needed change. Our age forces institutions and even people to change at a dizzying speed. Perhaps The Future Urologists Training meeting is a typical example of this. The feedback received from the meetings, the innovations implemented with AGEP, led to the “evolution” of the The Future Urologists Training meeting. The open-mindedness of Serkan Doğan, who undertook the secretariat of the meeting, and his aim to develop rather than protect his own baby, is an important element in the change. As we stated in this example, protecting what exists is not a sufficient concept for today. The need for continuous development is a necessity, as mentioned a little earlier. In summary, “Change or die”.

The Future Urologists Training meeting was held in June 2019 with the new meeting format. While the 36 senior research assistants who attended the meeting filled out their feedback perfectly, those who could not attend started to put pressure on the education officers for the following year. The feedback from the education officers regarding the quotas for the coming year showed the accuracy of the project.

The AGEP Board decided to create a detailed endoscopy book after the meeting. The book you are reading will be published at the 5th ÜCD National Congress in 2020. The book on endoscopy practice is also one of the firsts at the national level.

It was decided that “Copy-paste” should not be done in order to ensure that the originality of the photos to be included in the book does not create intellectual legal problems. A product that is an example of being original, paying attention to intellectual rights and producing a quality product was created in about 1 year. The management of Burak Argun and Volkan İzol, and the contribution of İlke Onur Kazaz, Hüseyin Eren, Yunus Emre Göğer and Volkan Şen were very, very important in this book. The book was the result of teamwork and the trust of the individuals in the team in each other.

AGEP has decided to “expand its boundaries” and open its doors to international speakers. To this end, Prof. Dr. Chris Evans, President of the American Association of Uro-Oncology, will speak on Prostate Cancer, Prof. Dr. Ervin Kocjancic on Artificial Sphincters, Prof. Dr. Alaa El-Ghoneimi on Minimally Invasive Pediatric Urology, Prof. Dr. Derya Tilki on Prostate Cancer, and Prof. Dr. Marco Castagnetti on Distal Hypospadias. In this way, AGEP has begun to take steps towards globalization.

Another pilot project in 2019 was the Virtual 3D Anatomy Training project. The project was carried out by TOBB anatomy Department of Anatomy faculty member Prof.Dr. Selçuk Tunalı, Aydın Mungan, Hüseyin Tarhan, Yunus Emre Göğer and Volkan Şen.

Let’s learn about Virtual Reality Training from Aydın Mungan’s pen;

“It was decided to add 3-dimensional urological anatomical surgery training, which will bring a new vision to the AGEP program and raise the bar higher. In line with this decision, 3D virtual reality urological anatomical surgery training was given to 10 research assistants who received the 1st year training of AGEP with the Z-Space software program on May 28, 2019 at TOBB University Anatomy Department of Anatomy. The project was carried out by TOBB anatomy department faculty member Prof.Dr. Selçuk Tunalı, Dr. Adil Esen, Dr. Aydın Mungan, Dr. Hüseyin Tarhan, Dr. Yunus Emre Göğer and Dr. Volkan Şen. This program had 4 stages. In the first stage, the program was introduced and how to use it was explained. In the second stage, urological surgical anatomy training was given with virtual reality. In the third stage, self-study time was given. In the fourth and final stage, a measurement and evaluation exam was conducted on virtual reality and it was evaluated how much of what was taught was learned. During the measurement and evaluation, the names of the anatomical formations could not be removed from the system, the software did not allow this. However, it was not possible to make an objective measurement and evaluation even when the names were present. For this reason, the names of the anatomical formations were translated into Chinese using the language option of the software program.”