History of Association of Southern Urologists

The birth of Association of Southern Urologists took place in Chennai in 1988 during one of the CUE programs organised by the senior faculty of the southern states. During the banquet at Adayar Park Hotel, it was decided by the senior statesman that a new professional body should be formed for the betterment of the Urologists practising in South India. Thus came into existence The Association of Southern Urologists. The rest is history. With the blessings of the senior Urologists and enthusiasm of the juniors of southern states, the ASU has grown steadily in strength as well as in various academic activities.

To add attraction and incentives, many awards were instituted by the society with generous donations from well-wishers and colleagues. Prof. H S Bhat Oration was the first one to be implemented. This was followed by a series of Awards and Fellowships of ASU, the corpus for each being generously contributed by the members. In the beginning, senior members of the speciality from outside the zone were honoured; but over the last few years, this custom has been forgone, due the dearth of time and massive increase in the number of our own members.

At the ASUCON-97 at Mangalore, it was suggested by many members in the Annual General Body Meeting that the name of ASU be changed to South Zone Chapter-USI (Association of Southern Urologists), keeping the idea that we would also be part of the main stream of Urologists of India. However, since the name Association of Southern Urologists had been registered with Registrar of Societies and income tax returns have been submitted in this account,change of name of the society was not legally permissible. Hence the official name still continues to be Association of Southern Urologists, though the annual conferences have been named as South Zone Urological Society of India Conference (SZUSICON). The Association has to its credit, State Associations, a unique feature, functioning independently. The UAK (Urological Association of Kerala) was the first to form, followed by APSOGUS (Society of Genito Urinary Surgeons of Andhra Pradesh), KUA (Karnataka Urology Association) and lastly TAPASU (Tamilnadu and Pondicherry Association of Urologists). With the division of Andhra Pradesh into Telangana and Coastal AP, APSOGUS has been renamed as SOGUS (AP & T). There are cordial interactions among there Associations. The Associations is currently one of the best Zonal Chapters with regards to the membership strength, financial status, academic/charity activities and other professional proceedings.