Dr. Helen Bernie highlights recent men’s health initiatives at Indiana University

In this interview, Helen L. Bernie, DO, MPH, highlights recent achievements for the male sexual and reproductive medicine program at Indiana University (IU) Health in Indianapolis, Indiana. Bernie is the director of male sexual and reproductive medicine and the andrology fellowship director at IU.

Video Transcript:

Hi, I'm Dr. Helen Bernie, and I'm the director of male sexual and reproductive medicine here at Indiana University. I'm also the andrology fellowship director. I came to IU about 5 years ago to build the male sexual and reproductive medicine program. Since that time, in the short 5 years that I've been here, we have really expanded. Now we have our own men's health office with residents and fellows, a nurse practitioner, and myself, who all see patients here in the office. We also developed the male sexual and reproductive medicine fellowship, and just graduated our first fellow Dr. Thairo Pereira this year. We currently have our second fellow Dr. Jacob Rust here, and we've actually already matched our third fellow for the '25-'26 year, Dr. Jeremiah Dallmer. We are truly so excited about the expansion of our program here at Indiana University. We've recently become a center of excellence for penile implant placement through Boston Scientific, and we were part of their new and short, limited market release of the new Boston Scientific TENACIO pump. It's been exciting to be on the forefront of new technology and new implants to help men regain their sexual function and empower them.

We've also been very fortunate to develop international relationships and internships with several residents and practicing urologists from Brazil. We were able to host Dr. Victor Negris Lima last month for a whole month here. It was a wonderful, fantastic opportunity for collaboration. This month, we have Dr. Gabriel Heluany, who is visiting us as well. [We have] been so lucky to have this collaboration of sharing of information here at our institution. We hope to grow upon this relationship and expand it in the future as well.

We also have a very robust penile rehab program here at Indiana University for all patients that undergo radical prostatectomies or radical cystectomies, including radiation therapy for prostate cancer. This is built to help them regain their erectile function recovery as well as incontinence. This is where we meet with patients before surgery when we're able to, and if not, we meet with them shortly after surgery to go over all the different sexual and reproductive health side effects that they can [experience] after a radical prostatectomy as well as incontinence. We work with them every step of the way––meeting them after that initial visit every 3 months until they're at the 1-year mark out after radical prostatectomy, or at the 2-year mark out after radiation therapy––so that we can help them optimize and get back to their baseline so that they can enjoy their life and that they can be back where they were just before their diagnosis of prostate cancer. It's something that we've certainly been very passionate about that we brought here to Indiana University.

We've also been able to develop really wonderful working relationships with our reproductive endocrinologists and our IVF lab centers that are throughout this area, both in our academic center here and throughout the private practices. We have a great working relationship with them for referrals. Our fellows [also] actually spend time there, and they get to learn about the process of sperm cryopreservation, as well as IVF with ICSI. I think it really helps well-round our fellowship program out as well allowing for applicants to learn and see from both sides, the male and the female aspect of it.

Another program initiative that I have been extremely passionate about which probably one of my most favorite things in this program is developing our fertility preservation program with Dr. Amanda Saraf, who's our pediatric hematology oncologist and the director of oncofertility here at Indiana University. We worked together when I came here about 5 years ago to put together a fertility preservation program. We also have started to offer a pre-pubertal fertility preservation program for our pediatric patients who are about to undergo cancer therapies or treatments that would otherwise render them infertile, so that they have an opportunity to and hope for the future that, despite this, that we can hopefully one day have the ability to be able to help them have biological children of their own. This is in a coordinated relationship with an IRB with the University of Pittsburgh where we do this. It's truly something that's meant so much to me for our whole team, as well as the patients and their families to be able to offer this to them. It's probably one of the things I'm most proud about since being here at Indiana University.

Despite all of this, I couldn't do any of all these amazing things that we've been able to accomplish here at Indiana University without my absolutely amazing, phenomenal team. That includes my amazing administrator Ashley Fox, my nurse Rhonda Titus, my fantastic nurse practitioner, Kristy Mardis, and my wonderful fellows with Thairo Pereira, being the first one, and Jacob Rust on board now for number 2. We've been so fortunate.

I just want to conclude, the last thing that I think has been really important that we've been able to build here at Indiana University in our men's health program is that we started to develop and create these institutional databases. These are for research projects that I've been very passionate about, including clinical outcomes and quality improvement initiatives with our penile implants. We also are looking at evaluating the impact of Xiaflex and modified protocols for Peyronie's disease, including in giving it to patients with ventral curvature, or more aggressive modeling protocols that we've just recently started implementing. We're also collecting data and I'm collaborating as a co-PI on an R01 NIH grant with Dr. Clint Baylor as the head PI, looking [at] evaluating the impact of PSMA scans on men with prostate cancer, and looking at how that translates into their impact on their outcomes, both oncological as well as quality of life for sexual continence, all of that. I think this has been another great area where we're able to take a look and see how can we change things and improve quality for patients. This allows us to see a lot of our penile rehab patients to be able to guide them through that process and take an overall holistic approach to care. I'm super excited and I can't wait to see what this next year holds in store for all of us.

This transcription has been edited for clarity.