Ep. 211 Mentorship and Growth Through the Society of Women in Urology with Dr. Simone Thavaseelan and Dr. Akanksha Mehta
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This week on the Backtable Podcast.
What we don't get anywhere else is the networking and the career development and the ability to reach out to somebody who has succeeded in an aspect of their career to ask, how did you do it? And what were the pitfalls? And how could you help me get there too? And that's a void that this society fills that no other subspecialty fills for all of us. And that, I think, has been the secret sauce to why this organization has been growing exponentially and attracting more and more members from really the full kind of career trajectory of urology, from medical students to residents, but also women who are in practice, early practice for sure, but also mid-career and late career. You know, we're really trying to draw in everybody.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Backtable Urology, your source for all things urology. You can find all episodes on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and on backtable.com.
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Now, back to the show.
I'm your host today, Dr. Casey Seidman. Welcome to our new collaborative series between the Society of Women in Urology and Backtable Urology. I'm excited to be joined today by two very special guests, Dr. Akanksha Mehta, who is the past president of SWU and an associate professor of urology and the program director of the residency program at Emory University. and Dr. Simone Thavasilin, professor of urology at Brown, also the program director of their urology residency and the current SWU president. Welcome. Thanks for having us. Happy to be here. I'm so excited to have you both join and to introduce this new collaborative series between SWU and Backtable Urology. I thought it would be fun just for the listeners to learn a little bit about SWU for our first episode. And so that's why I've strategically invited the past president and president of the organization. For those who don't know the history of SWU, SWU had really humble beginnings back in 1980 when Dr. Jean Forcroy and four other women in urology had an informal get together at the AUA.
These informal gatherings continued on a yearly basis at the meeting with the intent of supporting, promoting, and sponsoring women. In 1992, the group became formalized with an executive committee in bylaws, and in 2012, SWU hosted its first clinical mentoring conference. Now, in the year 2024, it has over 1,800 members. That's quite a growth since starting with five, including faculty, trainees, and students from actually around the world. I thought it would be really great if you both would tell me a little bit about how you first got involved with SWOO and how you then ascended to become president.
I actually got involved with SWOO because I was invited to speak at one of the SWOO meetings. This was the Scottsdale meeting. And I must have been, you know, five or six years into clinical practice at the time. There were very few women faculty at Emory Urology at the time. So I was really looking for broader mentorship in the urology community. I didn't know very much about this organization at all other than the fact that it existed. And it ended up being such a fantastic meeting, completely different from any other urologic meeting that I had ever attended. There was so much camaraderie. There was so much support. There was urology, of course, but there was so much more than just urology.
And they happened to announce at the meeting that there was a position open on the board. I spoke with some of the board members about what that is. entailed and ended up applying and joining the board. And it's been a fantastic ride. I mean, the board has changed so much. The organization has changed so much during my time on the board. All for the better.
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