the 4th C2 Academic Retreat (C2R) being organized jointly by the Canadian Urologic Oncology Group (CUOG) and the Canadian Urology Research Consortium (CURC) is scheduled for the weekend of September 25 to 27, 2009 at the fashionable hotel called W in Montreal.

According to UroToday, “this three-day educational event will include provocative ‘Town Hall’ sessions on the topics of Hormone Replacement and Cancer Risk, Prostrate Screening Controversies and the use of Robotic Technology in Surgery (Is it ready for prime time?).” “The line-up of topics and the caliber of presenters is unsurpassed in all the years we have been conducting these events,” says Dr. Laurence Klotz, Chair of the CURC and immediate past president of the Canadian Urology Association (CUA).

The Retreat allows the sponsoring (and often competing) pharmaceutical companies (i.e. Amgen AstraZeneca, Sanofi Aventis, GlaxoSmitKline, Merck Frosst, Novartis, Minoque Medical, Genesis Genomics, and Pfizer) to actively participate in the academic portion of the agenda.
Visiting presenters will include Dr. Eric Klein, Head of Urologic Oncology in the Urological Institute at Cleveland Clinic and editor of Urology; Dr. Christopher Evans, Chair, Department of Urology, UC Davis Cancer Center in Sacramento; and Anthony Zietman, Professor of Radiation Oncology at Harvard, and a world leader in prostate cancer radiation treatment.

Joining the discussion will be Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Health Specialist Maureen Taylor, adding the what UroToday calls “the voice of the public perception of men’s health issues to the prostrate screening debate.”

Why leading US urologists choose to go to Canada to huddle with drug companies — rather than just passing by the companies’ P-R tables outside the conference halls as is usually done at US conferences –no one has said.

“We strive to ensure that the intellectual content of C2R continues to be solid, medically provocative, controversial, and of great interest to our delegates – Men’s Health is very topical, and because of this, the Urological Community will always be curious about what’s around the corner, what we can learn from each other and what we can do better if not differently,” KLotz told UroToday.