Threats to successful practice, consistent with other workplace surveys of physicians and professional women including gender based role limitation and inadequate mentoring, were commonly reported. These correctable workplace deficiencies represent an opportunity for American urology to enhance the professional workplace for all urologists regardless of gender.

RALP perioperative parameters improved throughout the first 100 cases, while postoperative outcomes remained acceptable. Methods to improve patient safety and outcome occurred throughout the series. Even during the initial learning curve for this procedure, RALP appears to be another alternative for achieving prostate cancer control.

Throughout history, medicine has witnessed paradigm shifts that significantly change patient treatment. Recently, the introduction and development of laparoscopic surgery has had a major impact on patient treatment. On the horizon is natural orifice translumenal endoscopic surgery (NOTES), which has tremendous potential. This review focuses on the history of natural orifice endoscopy in urology with the progression through therapeutic natural orifice endoscopy and resection to the development of upper tract natural orifice surgery. Further delineated is how technology has improved these procedures to set the stage for NOTES.

A buffer system consisting of 50 mM Tris-HCI-TRIZMA base plus 10 mM EDTA was used to rapidly dissolve gellan gels used for maintaining transformed carrot root cultures. The optimum conditions of pH 7.5 in the presence of 10 mM EDTA for dissolving gellan were first worked out on a model test system containing 0.4% gellan, 0.025% MgSO4e7H20 , and blue dye. The conditions were then tested on gellan gels (0.2% gellan plus nutrients) containing carrot roots. This gel dissolution system was rapid (18 to 20 min), did not require heating, and could also be efficiently performed at 4°C. Furthermore, the buffer system used for gel dissolution is a standard one used for plant cell fractionation studies.