Residents Experience the Breadth and Depth of the Urology Field Through Unique Training Programs
Residents in the University of Rochester Medical Center’s Urology program gain invaluable clinical and research experience through the department’s unique training curricula. The focus is to find the best ways to educate the next generation of urologists.

When choosing a residency program, Laena Hines, MD, was interested in whether she would come out of it as a good surgeon. “My top priority was becoming a competent surgeon,” Hines said. “When I interviewed with the chief resident, he talked about the range of surgical autonomy I would have. I had no doubt that training at URMC Urology would make me the strongest surgeon I could be.” The level of surgical volume is special, and, Hines added, it stands true for research as well.

Researchers Uncover Possible New Biomarker for Psychosis Diagnosis
The current standard of care for psychosis is a diagnostic interview, but what if it could be diagnosed before the first symptom emerged? Researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester are pointing toward a potential biomarker in the brain that could lead to more timely interventions and personalized care.

New Discovery Enables Gene Therapy for Muscular Dystrophies, Other Disorders?
Gene therapy can effectively treat various diseases, but for some debilitating conditions like muscular dystrophies there is a big problem: size. The genes that are dysfunctional in muscular dystrophies are often extremely large, and current delivery methods can’t courier such substantial genetic loads into the body. A new technology, dubbed “StitchR,” surmounts this obstacle by delivering two halves of a gene separately; once in a cell, both DNA segments generate messenger RNAs (mRNAs) that join seamlessly together to restore expression of a protein that is missing or inactive in disease.

What The Streets Teach
Classes teach medicine, but Street Outreach helps teach how to connect with patients in ways that most students would never expect. It asks student volunteers to have hope for people who have sometimes lost all hope themselves, mirroring how society tends to view them. At times, these volunteers are trying to support people who have nobody else left who believes in them.

If the future of medicine depends on more equitable health care, participants in this program would say that learning on the streets of Rochester is helping to prepare them for that future.

Class of 2028 Code of Conduct
Every year, our incoming class creates a Code of Conduct which is a reminder to our students why they have chosen medicine.