Workstream 2

Workstream Lead: Margit Fisch

Prof. Margit Fisch is a Fellow of the European Board of Urology (F.E.B.U.) and a Fellow of the European Academy of Paediatric Urology (F.E.A.P.U.). Her major scientific interests are reconstructive urology (especially urethral reconstruction and urinary diversion) and paediatric urology. She trained with Prof. Rudolf Hohenfellner and Prof. Joachim Thüroff in Mainz, Germany. In 2000, she moved to AK Harburg in Hamburg and became Director of the Department of Urology and Paediatric Urology two years later. Since 2008, she has been (the first female) Chair of a Urology Department (University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf) in Germany.

Margit Fisch was president of the Society of Genito-Urinary Reconstructive Surgeons (GURS), the European Society of Genito-Urinary Surgeons (ESGURS) and the German Association of Urology (DGU). She is a member of the American Academy of Genito-Urinary Surgeons (AAGUS), the Association of Academic European Urologists (AAEU), the Society of Pelvic Surgeons (SPS), the European Association of Pediatric Urology (ESPU), and the Society of Pediatric Urologic Surgeons (SPUS). She has published over 300 papers and book chapters, with over 90 as first author. She is the organiser of the International Meeting on Reconstructive Urology (IMORU). In 2021, she received the SIU Distinguished Career Award.

Clinical Lead: Michel Wyndaele

Michel Wyndaele graduated summa cum laude as a medical doctor in 2006, successfully defended a PhD on bladder-bowel interactions in 2014 and completed his national Urology certification in 2016 at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. The same year, he obtained the Fellow of the European Board of Urology qualification. Subsequently, he was the senior clinical fellow in female and functional urology under Prof. Hashim, Prof Drake and Prof Abrams at Southmead Hospital in Bristol, UK, for one year.

Finally, in 2017, he completed a fellowship in urethral reconstruction with Prof. Lumen at the University Hospital in Ghent. He did a short replacement of the fellow in functional, reconstructive and neuro-urology under Prof. De Kort and Prof. Bosch at the University Medical Center Utrecht (UMCU), where he was appointed Academic Medical Specialist in Urology at the Urology Department of the Division of Surgical Specialties from January 2018.

Michel Wyndaele clinically focuses on academic (third line, last resort) Reconstructive, Functional Urology and Neuro-Urology. He has a growing list of peer-reviewed publications and book chapters, co-promotes 2 PhD students, is an editorial board member of the International Urogynaecology Journal (since 2021) and of Continence (since 2024), has set up a dedicated Robotic Reconstructive Urology service at UMCU with the team, and has been a member of the hospital’s medical ethical committee (NedMec) since 2021.

He currently is the ERN eUROGEN Vice Expertise Area Coordinator of Expertise Area 2.1 (Complicated and Complex Pelvic Floor disorders) and the ERN eUROGEN Workstream 2 (Functional urogenital conditions requiring highly specialized surgery) Clinical Lead.

Education Lead: Frank van der Aa

Frank Van der Aa is chair of the Department of Urology at the University Hospitals Leuven and a National MS Center staff member in Melsbroek, both in Belgium. He is also an associate professor of the Faculty of Medicine at the Catholic University of Leuven.

His special clinical interests are in neuro-urology, male and female incontinence, and reconstructive urology. His major research interests include animal models of stress urinary incontinence, interstitial cells, nerve regeneration and stem cell applications, and clinical data applications.

He received his MD in 2001 from the Catholic University of Leuven and his PhD in Medical Sciences in 2007 from the same university. He completed his residency in Urology in 2008 at UZ Gasthuisberg in Leuven. He became a Fellow of the European Board of Urology (FEBU) in 2010 and a Fellow of the European Board of Sexual Medicine (FECSM) in 2012.

He has been a faculty member of the European School of Urology (ESU) since 2009 and chairman of the Video Congress Committee of the European Association of Urology (EAU) Scientific Congress Office since 2019. He is president of the Belgian Working Group, Functional Urology.

Research Lead: John Heesakkers

Prof dr John PFA Heesakkers, MD, PhD, studied Medicine at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. In 1987, he received his MBA at the Rotterdam School of Management. He started his training in Urology in 1993 at the University Hospital Maastricht. In 1997, he successfully defended his thesis titled: ‘Dynamic Urinary Graciloplasty’ at the University of Maastricht. From 2000 to 2020, he was a full-time staff urologist at the Department of Urology of the Radboudumc and a consultant at the Rehabilitation Clinic St Maarten in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He headed the Unit of Functional Urology and Neurourology in the Radboudumc.

Since 2020, he has been appointed as a Full Professor at Maastricht University and as Head of the Department of Urology of the Maastricht UMC, the Netherlands. He chaired the Society of Functional and Reconstructive Urology, a body of the Dutch Association of Urology, until 2022. John Heesakkers is an active member of the DUA, EAU and IUGA. Since 2021, he has been the Secretary General of the Association of Academic European Urologists. Since September 2022, he has been the General Secretary of the International Continence Society. He is a faculty member of the European School of Urology. Within ERN eUROGEN, the European Reference Network for Rare Uro-Recto-Genital Diseases and Complex Conditions, he is the Workstream 2 Research Lead and an Expertise Area Coordinator relating to complicated & complex pelvic floor disorders. He is a reviewer of several major urologic scientific journals. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and books on urological topics.