In the next few paragraphs let me summarize the evolution of our training program.<\/p>\n
In the 1920, the School of Tropical Medicine was established and moved to a new building in San Juan. It was established as an academic institution to study the tropical diseases that plagued Puerto Rico at that time. \u00a0The school flourished and soon became internationally recognized as a research center. \u00a0Well known investigators as Dr. Bailey K. Ashford and Dr.\u00a0Enrique Koppish began scientific studies that culminated in the correct diagnosis and treatment of many endemic diseases that affected our population.<\/p>\n
This school contained a small hospital that harbored young, energetic surgeons like Dr.\u00a0Francisco Rafucci, Dr. Luis Guzm\u00e1n L\u00f3pez, and Dr. Luis A. Sanjurjo. \u00a0By the late 1940, the old San Juan City Hospital, located in Santurce was the clinical workshop and training center for many young physicians in Puerto Rico. \u00a0At that time the chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Jaime Benitez embraced the idea of many physicians in the island and was instrumental in establishing a new medical school in 1950. \u00a0This school had full accreditation for post-graduate training in its four major departments: \u00a0Surgery, Medicine, Pediatrics and Ob\/Gyn.<\/p>\n
At this time Dr. Sanjurjo, an urologist trained in France, had the vision of establishing a post graduate surgical education in urology; and with a limited budget founded a urology residency program at the Old San Juan City Hospital. \u00a0He was able to convince two young interns, Dr.\u00a0Benigno Rodr\u00edguez Lucca and Dr. Fortu\u00f1o to assist and help the urology staff at the San Juan City Hospital. \u00a0One year later, Dr. Rodr\u00edguez Lucca started as a full time resident in the yet to be approved program while Dr. Fortu\u00f1o had to perform his military service in the Korean War. Dr. Alberto Mej\u00edas Casals, an urologist trained at the Cleveland Clinic, joined the faculty as well as Dr. Nestor M\u00e9ndez. \u00a0Under their leadership and the driving force of Dr.\u00a0Benigno Rodr\u00edguez Lucca, the number of surgical cases increased significantly. \u00a0In 1954, Dr.\u00a0Roberto Fortu\u00f1o returned to Puerto Rico and became the second resident at the urology service. \u00a0It was at this year that the Council of Graduate Medical Education granted full accreditation to our program which has continued uninterruptedly for over\u00a0sixty\u00a0years.<\/p>\n
Later on, Dr. Rodr\u00edguez Lucca and Dr. Fortu\u00f1o were able to convince a surgery resident, Dr.\u00a0Bernardino Gonz\u00e1lez Flores, to join them as a urology resident. \u00a0From then, only one resident was accepted every other year until 1964, when this was increased to one per year.<\/p>\n
Since then more than 150 residents have completed urology training in our program. \u00a0With their hard work and under the guidance of many well-trained urologists we have been able to continue the academic environment established by our forefathers. \u00a0In these years the program has evolved using a balanced curriculum that includes 6 months of general surgery, and four and a half years of diverse training in all fields of Urology including endourology, reconstructive, robotics, pediatric urology and general urology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In the next few paragraphs let me summarize the evolution of our training program. In the 1920, the School of Tropical Medicine was established and moved to a new building in San Juan. It was established as an academic institution to study the tropical diseases that plagued Puerto Rico at that time. \u00a0The school flourished…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","description-off"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/md.rcm.upr.edu\/urology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/md.rcm.upr.edu\/urology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/md.rcm.upr.edu\/urology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/md.rcm.upr.edu\/urology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/md.rcm.upr.edu\/urology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/md.rcm.upr.edu\/urology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/md.rcm.upr.edu\/urology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}