Article
Trying to name a single theme characterizing the recently convened AUA annual meeting in Orlando is a tough assignment given the meeting's diversity, but one trend is worth noting: A great deal of the news coming out of this year's biggest meeting of urologic surgeons had little do with surgery at all. Perhaps this observation should come as no surprise. The fact that some of the most widely discussed findings focused on drug and "complementary" therapies rather than surgical techniques may well reflect urology's increasing shift away from complex surgery and toward office-based practice. Whether urology is heading toward a formal two-tiered system of office-based urologists and surgical specialists remains to be seen, but some say such a system is already unfolding.