A One-of-a-kind, Worldwide Collaboration

A-BE-C is so proud to be a part of the annual Bladder Exstrophy workshop which celebrated its 15th year in January!!! After two days of extensive discussion and five days of complex surgeries, I can’t thank Civil Hospital enough for their ongoing commitment to our beautiful children and families living with bladder exstrophy.

Here are a few highlights:

• Pediatric urology residents from more than 10 different countries attended this unique live, hands-on workshop.
• We treated, counseled, or performed surgery on more than 150 patients. This included new patients as well patients returning for their yearly follow up.
• Our families came from 14 different states in India and five different countries including Bangladesh, Ghana and the Bahamas.
• 17 surgeries were performed over the five day workshop, including four international patients and 14 states of India.
• We had the support of Rachel Fisher Althizer, a young woman with exstrophy from the US, bringing hope to these families.
• In addition to an expert team of dedicated pediatric urology surgeons, the collaboration has grown to include A-BE-C, geneticists, nursing, and research.

This one-of-a-kind, worldwide collaboration to treat one of the most complex anomalies was started in 2009 with the blessing and support of India’s Hon. CM Shri Narendra Modi, and it continues to grow each year. Dr. Rakesh Joshi and his entire department at Civil Hospital Ahmedabad work tirelessly all year and play a crucial role in supporting our mission that ANYONE BORN WITH BLADDER EXSTROPHY SHOULD HAVE BEST POSSIBLE SURGICAL OUTCOME.

This year’s workshop was dedicated to the loving memory of Dr. Douglas Canning.