Midwest Stone Institute and Washington University School of Medicine

Fellowship in Endourology, Laparoscopy and ESWL

Program History

This fellowship is one of the original endourology subspecialty programs. It was started by Dr. Ralph Clayman in 1984. The fellowship has always had a very active animate laboratory and has had a focus on developing, evaluating and bringing novel treatments and instrumentation into the clinical realm. Many of Dr. Clayman's advances were pioneered and tested in this laboratory, including many of the laparoscopic procedures that are commonplace today. Early contribution in the laboratory also came from Dr. Louis Kavoussi and Dr. Elspeth McDougall.

Dr. Clayman left Washington University in 2001, to chair the Department of Urology at the University of California at Irvine. Dr. Chandru Sundaram led the fellowship training program until his departure to Indiana University in 2002.

Dr. Jaime Landman continued as the head of the fellowship training program from 2002 until 2005, when he took a position at Columbia University in New York.

Currently, Dr. Sherb Figenshau is the Clinical Director of the Midwest Stone Institute and serves as fellowship director. Dr. Figenshau began his association with Dr. Clayman in 1982 when he worked as a laboratory technician in Dr. Clayman's laboratory at the University of Minnesota. He worked with Dr. Clayman while completing his urology residency at Washington University. He scrubbed on many of the early laparoscopic nephrectomies performed by Dr. Clayman and Dr. Kavoussi. Dr. Figenshau's interests are in laparoscopic renal and retroperitoneal surgery.

Dr. Ramakrishna Venkatesh completed the fellowship in 2003. He has developed The Stone Center, a multidisciplinary stone clinic at Washington University. He also has a busy practice and performs many endoscopic and laparoscopic procedures.

Dr. Sam Bhayani is the Research Director of the Midwest Stone Institute. He completed his urology residency at Washington University. He then completed a two-year fellowship at Johns-Hopkins University with Dr. Louis Kavoussi. Dr. Bhayani has an interest in minimally invasive ablative treatments for small renal masses. He is partnering with Dr. Daniel Brown of Interventional Radiologists in developing percutaneous ablative procedures for selected renal masses.

Dr. Gerald Andriole is the Chief of the Division of Urology. His practice is limited to the treatment of prostate cancer. He performed nearly 200 laparoscopic radical prostatectomy procedures in 2004. He has contributed greatly to the operative experience of the recent fellows.

Description of Program

This is a one year fellowship. The laboratory experience will focus on endourological and laparoscopic research. The projects are aimed at addressing clinical problems. The clinical responsibilities focus on endourological and laparoscopic and ESWL procedures. The fellow will be responsible for the enrollment of patients in clinical studies, and with the accrual and interpretation of data in those studies. The clinical fellow will also have office hours and be able to generate their own cases as well as be involved with the cases of the three attendings that compose the endourology service.

Clinical Volume 2004

Research Facilities

Collaboration

Previous Graduates of Fellowship Program

1. Howard Winfield 1985
   University of Iowa
   Iowa City, Iowa
   

2. Peter Bub 1986
   Katharine Hospital
   Stuttgart, Germany
   

3. Men Long Liong 1986
   Malaysia
   

4. Juan Fernandez 1987
   Clearlake, California
   

5. Harry Halikiopoulos 1987
   Thessaloniki, Greece
   

6. Elspeth McDougall 1988
   UC Irvine Medical Center
   Orange, California
   

7. John Denstedt 1989
   St. Joseph’s Health Center
   London, Ontario
   

8. Shimon Meretyk 1990
   Rambam Medical Center
   Haifa, Israel
   

9. David Albala 1991
   Duke University Medical Center
   Durham, North Carolina
   

10. Paramjit Chandhoke 1992
    University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
    Denver, Colorado
    

11. Kevin Anderson 1993
    The Permanente Medical Group
    Roseville, California
    

12. Margaret Pearle 1994
    University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
    Dallas, Texas
    

13. Steven Nakada 1995
    University of Wisconsin
    Madison, Wisconsin
    

14. Stuart Wolf 1996
    University of Michigan
    Ann Arbor, Michigan
    

15. David Hoenig 1997
    Bronx, New York
    

16. Arieh Shalhav 1998
    University of Chicago
    Chicago Illinois
    

17. Scott Kahn 1998
    New York, New York
    

18. Matthew Dunn 1999
    University of Southern California
    Los Angeles, California
    

19. Andrew Portis 2000
    St Paul, Minnesota
    

20. John Patteras 2001
    Emory University
    Atlanta, Georgia
    

21. Jaime Landman 2001
    Columbia University
    New York
    

22. Jamil Rehman 2002
    Stony Brook Health Sciences Center
    Stony Brook, New York
    

23. Richard Vanlangendanck 2003
    Ochsner Clinic
    New Orleans, Louisiana
    

24. Ramakrishna Venkatesh 2003
    Washington University
    St. Louis, Missouri
    

25. David Lieber 2004
    Springfield, Illinois
    

26. Caroline Ames 2005
    Bloomington, Indiana
    

27. Kyle Weld 2005
    USAF
    San Antonio, Texas
    

Co-Directors of Fellowship

Fellows