Dr. Fromer discusses band of urologists at Hackensack University Medical Center

In this interview, Debra L. Fromer, MD, discusses a band made up of urologists at Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC). The group recently performed at a battle of the bands competition to benefit DEI initiatives within the American Urological Association. Fromer is the chief of female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery in the department of urology at HUMC.

Video Transcript:

If we're going to do that, we have to go back about 25 years ago to when I was an intern in general surgery, and my chief resident was this guy named Mike Stifelman, who's now the chair of my department. He was in a band, and he played the drums. When I was a young resident as an intern, I used to play the piano in the fancy part of the hospital where they had a piano and a lounge. I would go up there whenever I had free time to play the piano. He came up to me, and he was like, "I have this band. We need a singer. We need a keyboardist. Let's go." So, I joined the band. For those few years that I was a resident, we played some gigs, and we had a great time. It was a great group. Then when Dr. Stifelman came here as a chair 6 years ago, we reconnected. It was actually my 50th birthday party–I'm dating myself now–but 2 years ago, I wanted to bring the band back together again to play for my party. We had to recruit some new people to the band. That brought the band back together again; it was very exciting. We've been playing some gigs ever since then. One of those gigs was the New York section of the AUA, we did a fundraising event, which was a battle of the bands with 2 other urology departments that had bands as well. It was a very successful event that was very fun for everybody that was sponsored by industry. We raised several thousand dollars for DEI initiatives for the New York section. That was back in November, and we did it in Hoboken, New Jersey.

We intend to do another battle of the bands next year. It was so successful this year that we plan on doing it again with the same bands. Just a shout out to the other bands: one is at North Shore and the other was at Montefiore. Our names are pretty interesting, because they're urology-based names. So, our name is Live Stream. North Shore is Hot Seeds, and Montefiore is Clean Catch, so all little puns on urology. All great bands, really fun, so we encourage people to come out when we do it next time.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.