Welcome to today's webinar. I'm Gary Sutkin, the moderator for today's webinar. Before we begin, I'd like to share that we will take questions in between our speakers. You can submit them at any time by typing them into the question box on the left-hand side of the event window. There is a little delay between when you type and when we answer, but don't worry, we'll get to your questions. Today's webinar is Volunteerism and FPMRS Expanding Your Career. It's going to be presented by Drs. Felicia Lane, Charlie Raridon, Sherelle Carter-Brooks, and Melina Weinstein. We'll start with Dr. Raridon. Dr. Raridon is professor at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University and a member of the active staff at Women and Infants Hospital. He has served OGS on the Public Relations Committee, the Scientific Program Committee, directed the office-based urogynecology and urogynecology update courses for several years. He is currently president of OGS. All right. Well, thank you, everyone. We do want to have a few objectives, if I can get my reading glasses on and read this little thing here. I wanted to take an opportunity to understand how volunteers function within medical society, specifically this one. And as the title implies, although there's a huge amount that's so important to the organization, one thing I've learned over these years is just how important it is to me as an individual. My career development, my job satisfaction, it really pays back more than I pay into it. I want to explore the impact that a volunteer has on the society, that a society really isn't anything without the volunteers that populate it and to make it go, and some logistic tips on how to volunteer and still keep your day job. I think it's appropriate, and I want to thank the Education Committee for putting this together. You know, the more I've reflected on it, the more I realized that OGS, I think, is really good at educating us at all the steps in our career, not just as residents and fellows investigating this and just getting into the subspecialty space, but continuing to flourish through our careers. So I think this truly is a service of the Education Committee, and I want to thank again Gary and the entire panel, as well as the Education Committee. I want to start a little bit with some background about the different roles that volunteers take in a very literal sense. I'm going to move ahead to a fairly scary chart, which is our systematic organizational chart of the American Uruguayan Society. There's a lot of moving parts, and the point of this slide is not to bog you down in details. There won't be a test at the end of this, but the line at the top is the OGS Board of Directors, which is comprised of the officers, the presidential line, as well as the treasurer, and six directors at large. Those folks are elected by the membership. You may have seen an email today to cast your votes for the Board of Directors. We'll get into a little bit about what the Board sees as its mission. There are five committees that report directly to the Board of Directors. Those are just very housekeeping, finance, audit, things like this. They report directly to the Board. And then all the other parts of what OGS is and what makes it go are housed within the committee structure, and the committees are the blue bars within the gray columns that you see. We learned over the years that in order—once we started getting busier and having more and more going on, it was important to house some of the committees that were focused in similar goals and similar areas in order not to duplicate or even counteract some of the activity, house them in council. A couple years ago, we went to this council concept where committees that were like-minded could coexist and rub elbows and cross-pollinate. So that's sort of what these committee structures look like. There are council calls where the leadership of the committees will share what's going on. There are board liaisons, there are council chairs, a lot of different structure to sort of maximize the ways that the efforts of the members, of the volunteers, can really make OGS move forward and carry us into the next phases of what FPMRS is going to look like. We never lose track of the fact that the volunteers—and, you know, you may see us around at PFD Week carrying the pin on our lapel that says, volunteer. To us, that's a badge of honor. It's really what makes this go. So that's a little bit about the committee structure. I can certainly answer any questions if there are questions as far as the structure. The point, again, is just to let you know a little bit about how people can plug into the mechanism that is the American Uruguayan Society. One of the things the board does is we try to focus on—because it's very easy to start getting—to start going down the pathway of how to implement these things that we're thinking about, you know, problem solve and that sort of stuff. So we're constantly reminding ourselves of this image. Here's a bicycle and the bicyclist. And that's a unit. They are a unit together. But the front wheel and the back wheel are equally important, but they have different jobs. So at the board level, we remind ourselves that it's our job to provide direction, direction to the board, that we will strive to be strategic, stay focused on our mission, ways to actualize the vision, get those things done, and it's our job to provide the funds. So whenever there's a charge, whenever there's a request that goes to a committee, part of the board's job is to give them, the committee, the assets, the members, whatever they need to meet that goal. But that we consider the front wheel. The back wheel is the engine of the organization, and that resides really in the committee structure. So that's where the power comes from. That's where the work gets propelled forward. That is made up of the volunteers and the staff that support them. And just a quick reminder that I think everybody on the panel will certainly recognize the value of our AUGs. About three and a half years ago, we made the move to actually become a self-standing organization, which means we now have our own AUGs employees, including CEO, COO, and all the organizational things that a $5 million organization such as ourselves require. But they work hand-in-hand with the volunteers to move the work forward. Tactical. So this doesn't mean there isn't a lot of high-level thought going on. The back wheel concept doesn't mean it's just grunt work. There's a lot of tactical and operational, how are we going to get this done? Plans, budgets, feeding back and forth with the front wheel to understand what it's going to take to get these charges accomplished. The implementation and the ongoing evaluation. So we never finish a project and then walk away from it, because time moves quickly. And pretty soon, if we do that, we still have posted up on our website an article or a paper or some sort of committee opinion that's obsolete. We can't have that. People turn to AUGs for it to understand what it is that we're thinking and where that organization is going. So a lot of important work is in the back wheel. And I can certainly attest that there is satisfaction to be gained and challenges to be gained in both of those arenas, both in the front wheel and back wheel. But that's sort of what we strive to keep ourselves cognizant of, both in the board meetings and as we speak with the volunteers in the committees and councils. Go over some of that a little bit again in terms of the roles of the committees. And there's a slide for the roles of the board and roles of staff liaison and roles of council chair. But I just wanted to share with this audience the way we see the roles of the committees. They really carry out the charges and advance the strategic plan on behalf of the board. They make recommendations to the board, again, a two-way street. Work with the staff as a resource and help guide the implementation of programs. And I think looking a little bit forward as far as what has been so educational for me in this process is understanding how to figure out the different roles. And with each project, where does staff responsibilities, where does that start and end, and how does that overlap with the volunteers? It's an ongoing process. And I've seen it done badly and I've seen it done really well. And I think this is a skill set that is absolutely applicable to leadership in any part of medicine or even beyond. To establish the project-specific work groups to help advance the committee charges. And this is really important, too. We'll get into this a little bit, but to develop and identify future leaders. If we don't cultivate that process, if we don't groom leadership, we lose the corporate memory and we lose the ability to really move forward in a nice narrative arc about where we're headed. Otherwise, we just play catch-up all the time. So, these are very important roles of the committees. Backing up a little bit, we have, over the past year, really spent some time as a board trying to clarify and to document what we think our culture is and should be. And I don't want to get too much into details, but I want to share some of these because I think these are very important for potential volunteers and current volunteers and current leaders to remind ourselves of. One is that we have a foundation of inclusion. Although we very much value differing opinions, and we'll get into some of what has been very valuable to each of us personally, but I love the opportunity to disagree productively with people whom I trust. But at the end of the day, we are a single unit. We are a holistic organization. Diversity. Diversity looks like a lot of things. It's gender, it's race, it's ethnic, it's also geographic, it's academic versus private. There's a lot of different ways to look at diversity, and it's absolutely part of our mission to put into leadership positions as well as to committee structures diversity as much as we possibly can. Being transparent and accountable, and this has to do with conflict of interest as well as all the other things that go into that. Conflict resolution. Again, there's some of that dealing with the fact that as a board, we invite a disagreement with each other, but at the end of the day, we speak with a single voice. The board and staff partnership, again, dealing with the complexities but really fruitful relationships between our own staff and our leadership. Again, speaking with a unified voice. That we as leaders and certainly the committee chairs, we see ourselves as ambassadors, and I know I'm speaking with an august panel of people who feel the same way and really get energized about sharing what it is that AUG's participation and volunteerism has meant for us. Strategy focused and open to feedback. We continue to increase the ways that we invite people to our membership to speak with us, talk about what we're doing well, what we're not doing well, and this is an ongoing process. So that's a little bit what I wanted to just kind of get the ball rolling with. Gary, again, thank you for setting this up and to the panel for participation. If there are any questions along the way, please pipe up, but let me turn it back to you, Gary, for our next chapter. Well, thank you, Charlie, and definitely anybody who wants to throw in questions, just put them into the chat space. Meanwhile, let's turn to Dr. Weinstein and her presentation. Melina Weinstein is a long-time AUG volunteer and currently is a member of the Clinical Guidelines Committee. She has been attending at Mass General Hospital where she is FPMRS Fellowship Program Director and Co-Chair of the Public Floor Disorder Center. Melina? Thank you, Gary, and good evening, everybody. When I heard about this webinar, I sort of started thinking, what is really volunteerism to me? And when I really dug deep, I realized that the first image that came to mind is unfortunately this picture, which took me back to my childhood. This is a Soviet Subotnik, if anybody knows what that picture really represents. And that wasn't really volunteering. This was actually truly a compulsory type of volunteering, which isn't really in the spirit of volunteering. And I'm glad that that's not really how I view volunteerism nowadays. And taking it back to today, it's really, to me, volunteering is just ability to use my time, and it does take time for sure. And some of the talents, sometimes I feel a little clueless, but sometimes I do feel I contribute and really have the impact on others and on the society that actually supports us tremendously as clinicians, researchers, and sub-specialists. And really, there are no hidden agendas. I mean, this is kind of how it is. I started the volunteering very kind of green as a fellow. It was very hard to navigate the system, but as I went through it, I realized that there is an immense positive impact that it had on me as a person, and of course, on me professionally. So probably the most important thing that I find personal benefit in volunteering for AUGS is I met amazing people and actually built some lifelong friendships with people. Lots of colleagues, dear friends that I look forward to seeing at AUGS and sometimes interact very frequently outside of just at national conferences and national phone calls, et cetera. And lots of people that I can refer patients to, refer personal friends to, and family, which is important. Having trusted colleagues around that you know, you trust, you understand how they think because you work with them at the committee level activities makes you feel like you can actually trust people in other ways as well. And I do think that volunteering for AUGS and doing work with these different committees is actually really increases my personal satisfaction to work and it can reflect back to what I do as a clinician and think about the clinical guidelines committee work that I do and kind of make a lot of very useful parallels and actually talk to my patients about what is the perspective of the national society on some of the issues that they're experiencing, which is pretty big. But actually, even more importantly, on a professional level, national service is quite important for my promotion and continues to be important for my promotion. Most of my promotion letters were written by the people that I've met through working on different committees and different educational opportunities that I work with. So, that's key because people get to know you and they can actually write you letters of support that are very meaningful. I do think volunteering has changed a lot of my research approaches and skills as well as my leadership skills. It takes time to kind of build and understand the intricacy of the AUGS as a society. And as you do and as you start participating more, I feel like I become much more aware of kind of all the moving parts, but also how I fit into those moving parts. And that makes me a better leader, actually. And also just speaking to these national phone calls, I mean, initially I thought that was actually horrifying, but I think I'm actually doing a whole lot better with that. So, that's a really good thing. I do find that the network of colleagues that I've met through AUGS has been incredibly supportive and really helps me personally and professionally. And I do think that also part of working with the PUD Registry, it is something that anybody can have access to, and I have been working with my hospital, even though it's quite a complex system, to actually try to also participate in the registry and being one of the sites. Is it challenging? Absolutely. And I think everybody really can attest to it is time is tricky, and we're all busy people. We have lots of complex academic careers, personal time, and volunteering is a big impact on all those things. I mean, evening calls, I mean, the number of times that my kid would scream through the call on the national committee, and you have to forget to mute the phone, and it's pretty crazy. So, it's interesting how you just fit that in, and then you don't actually think about it, because as challenging as it is, I still find it's such a satisfying and very invigorating experience. So, it's much easier now that my child is actually older. And I put together sort of a list of different things I've done with AUGS. It's long, and some of it is sort of a little repetitive, only because I've been doing some of the things multiple, multiple years. Some of it was fascinating. When I first started working on a scientific committee, like reviewing abstracts, that was a very interesting experience, and I've done that recently again. When I first joined the research committee, I was absolutely clueless about the structure of AUGS, and actually just being on a committee helped me a lot to understand that early on. And now I feel like on my committee that I've been on for a while now, I have much better grasp of kind of where things fit and how we work, and it's a great experience. I mean, if anybody has questions about sort of some of the more individual experiences that I've had with those volunteering, different volunteering things that I've done, I'm absolutely happy to talk about it, and really talk about any questions. Thank you. Well, thank you, Milena. Again, any questions at all, just please add them in. And I think we'll get to questions towards the end. Why don't we move on to Dr. Carter-Brooks. Cherelle Carter-Brooks is currently completing her fellowship training in FPMRS at McGee Women's Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. She volunteers for the American Urogynecological Society Guidelines Committee. Cherelle? Thank you, Dr. Sutkin. So, as Dr. Sutkin mentioned, I am a third-year fellow at McGee, and probably, you know, one of the most junior people on this call. I've only been volunteering with AUGS for the last year and a half, and actually, people like Dr. Sutkin and some of the other faculty here at McGee kind of motivated me to want to be involved in AUGS and volunteer, because I saw their involvement, and so, it felt like I wanted to follow in their footsteps. And I think, you know, many of us volunteer in a number of ways in our lives, and one quote that's really stuck with me throughout all of my volunteerism is from Maya Angelou, and it's, I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. And I think for most of us, this idea of needing...of wanting to be able to give back to our communities is really what drives us to volunteer, and it's not just work. It can be your children's tool. It can be your religious institutions. It could be a group you're not even a part of, but you just realize there's a need, and so you volunteer your time. And I think a number of us have had a lot of support and mentorship along the way and want to be able to give that back to our colleagues and our trainees and future generations. In addition, we want to be able to have a say, you know, especially growing up. I'm a millennial. I'm not going to deny that, but we like to complain about everything and want to change the world, like, in a day, in a minute, and so I think this is a great way for me to channel my energy and not just talk about it, but actually, you know, have actionable plans, be contributing to something that actually is going to affect change and make things different for people and hopefully, you know, through us, improve the care of our patients. And lastly, we really want to impact the future. I mean, I always think of the quote from Gandhi, be the change that you want to see in the world. So, if you want things to change, you need to be a part of that, and it's really a rewarding experience to be able to see how you're contributing to the future. I mean, one of the, so on the Guidelines Committee, I worked on the Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection Practice Guideline that was recently published, and, you know, for me, it was a great experience. I got to work with more senior people, and I felt like really at every step, I was included along the way, and I was a little bit nervous at first, but by the end, like, I felt like I was part of the group. And it's really impactful to see that document and have, you know, fellows attending, people in urology read it and tell me what they thought about it. And I know that that document is touching people outside of my personal network, but even across the country and maybe in, you know, internationally as well. And so, when I think of volunteers for AUGS, I think of a very diverse and dedicated group of people. And as Dr. Raredan mentioned, you know, we're diverse in a lot of different ways. Our training background, urology versus OBGYN, nurse practitioners, physician's assistants, basic scientists, what our practice patterns are if we see mostly pain or we see neurogenic bladder, just prolapse, and where we're practicing. Are we in a big academic center, private practice, or the only urogyne, you know, in the middle of Montana somewhere? And then our personal background, you know, our race, our gender, our age, our ethnicity, our religious background, where we grew up, how we grew up. All of those things make us unique, but that just adds to AUGS, I think, and makes us really able to come up with programs and documents that are able to reach a broader group of people because we bring together a bunch of different kinds of people. And importantly, everybody is super dedicated. We're dedicated to patients, our colleagues, our trainees, our families, which I forgot to put on here, but also advancing medicine and women's health and really, you know, helping the future generations, and we're dedicated to that. And so all together, you know, all of our individual unique qualities come together. They overlap. And this collaboration and kind of melding of ideas and strengths is really, I think, the heart of AUGS. And like Dr. Reardon said, it's the back wheel that kind of drives the organization. And so when I was thinking of, you know, how volunteers really impact AUGS, the main thing that came to mind was PFD Week. It's something that, you know, most of us attend and are just in awe, especially when I went, I think, as a...when I was a resident, I just couldn't believe it. The research, the education, the camaraderie, it's pretty amazing. Last year in Rhode Island, there were around 1,200 attendees, maybe more. There were 18 workshops, 25 roundtables, 200-plus presentations, research presentations, clinical seminars, master surgeon sessions, networking events, and an exhibit hall. And all of that was planned by volunteers. And I really didn't, like, think about it that way until we started having the discussion about this talk, and I'm like, that's a lot of work. I, like, once planned a conference for, I don't know, maybe 30 or 50 medical students back in medical school, and that was an overwhelming task. I can only imagine with 1,200-plus people and all of these things going on. And so I love this picture of this glacier. You know, what we see above the water is this little ice peak, and that is our PFD Week. But below, there's this huge glacier, and that's all the volunteers, our abstract committee, our program committee, our workshop chair, our program chair, who really come together and put in a huge amount of time and energy to make this conference what it is and have a huge impact on AUGS membership and even people outside of AUGS and just our community and society at large. And from a fellow perspective, I can personally say that volunteers in AUGS have definitely impacted my training career. I have attended a number of courses, the cadaver course, the robotic course, and even the fellows day at PFD Week, and that is all from volunteerism. Like, people basically give up their time to educate me and make sure that I get the training experience that I need in my fellowship, which has really, really been amazing. In addition, there's webinars available online to kind of go along with that, which you get in the courses. And, you know, in terms of being in the office, there's patient brochures for our patients to explain the surgery. It's just awesome because you can give it to them to take home. There's coding material and billing material to help us improve how we function in the office. There's practice guidelines, so we've been out on our own for a couple of years and forget what our program director was telling us. We have materials we can look back and make sure that we're practicing evidence-based medicine. And so, really, one of the reasons I wanted to give back is because AUGS has done so much, I think, as a resident and as a fellow, without asking anything of me, I definitely want to be able to contribute. And lastly, I really think that the future volunteers are millennials. I mean, this is the generation that's kind of coming up right now. We're in residency, fellowship, you know, new attendings, and we need to hear your voice. We want you to be involved. Thank you. Wow. That was great, Sherelle. So, let's move on to our final speaker, which is Dr. Felicia Lane. Felicia serves as Health Science Clinical Professor and Vice Chair of the Department of OB-GYN at the University of California, Irvine. She serves as the Vice Chair of the Fellowship Special Interest Group, Annual Program Planning Committee, Abstract Reviewer, Grant Reviewer, and now is the AUGS PSC Week Program Committee Chair. Felicia? Good evening, and thank you, Gary, for that introduction and members for joining us tonight. So, I have the distinct pleasure of guiding you through the volunteering while still keeping your day job. So, my goal in the next eight minutes is to convince you that volunteering facilitates a work-life balance. So, a quick story. In addition to being a Fellowship and Division Director at UC Irvine, I have two teenage boys, ages 12 and 14, and once a month, our university holds a food drive and a health fair, and in my 20 years at UCI, I had never attended either. Then my 14-year-old was assigned community service hours, and away we went to the UCI Food Bank, and together we spent a Saturday. We were unloading the food, sorting, and handing out all of this much-needed food. Actually, the hardest part of our day was trying to get the attendees actually to stop into the health fair before they escaped with their food, but ultimately, my son and I had a wonderful day together, giving back to my medical center and its community, and we may have given just a few hours of service, but spending the day looking outward was really invaluable. And as I reflect on my volunteer opportunities with AUGS, I am grateful for having the opportunity to give back to our professional community, much like I was grateful my son and I were able to give back to my UCI community. So, I began volunteering for AUGS, oh, I'd say less than 10 years ago, and really the only reason I didn't start sooner is I just didn't know where I would borrow the time from. The juggling that we do in medicine can be really relentless, so most of us have a multitude of responsibilities, and just some of them are listed here. We have parenting responsibilities. Some of you might find yourself on baseball fields or volleyball tournaments. We have family commitments, patient responsibilities, you know, even though we're not in the office with our patients, we still think about them. We have departmental responsibilities and leadership responsibilities, hospital commitments, education, research, and many of you know that the reward for a job well done is more work. So, in order to keep a work-life balance, I recommend making a list, and I think this has been very effective for me. Basically, one thing to do is compile a list of all the commitments and tasks that currently are piled on your plate, and you might be overwhelmed when you look at it, but take them, break them down, and categorize them, and assess each one of their values. Once you've done that, it will really allow you to kind of drop or reduce time on those activities that add no value. So, by reducing some of my institutional responsibilities, it really opened up ample space for my OGS volunteering. So, just one example. One example would be my service for our institutional review board. You know, I learned a ton the first few years on this committee, reviewing new and continuing research protocols, and learned about FDA regulations, but after years of service, the value versus the time commitment kind of flipped, and I really maxed out on my educational experience. And so, by retiring from this position, it allotted me more time for OGS. Another thing I think is critical is keeping work out of the home. This also has a lot of value. My husband can attest to that. So, caring for and spending solid time with our families is, in itself, a form of volunteerism. So, I've made it a ritual to separate from work mode before I enter the house. So, you can kind of picture me, I pull up, I drive into the garage, and I literally sit there for a few minutes. I turn off my phone, at least when I'm not on call, stash my computer, and then I walk in the door. And it may only be two or three hours, but that time is dedicated to my family. And this is one of the most effective ingredients that I've found to a work-life balance. So, what do we need? Well, a recent Gallup poll on the state of the American workplace found that 70% of U.S. workers felt disengaged from work. And the result of this was that there was decreased productivity and eventually burnout. And those that were surveyed felt that work just wasn't meaningful anymore, or they weren't experiencing growth. So, personally, having been at the same institution for 20 years, it's easy for things to seem monotonous. But I can tell you that volunteering for OGS has provided me with a fresh perspective. It's given me an opportunity for growth. Like everyone has said prior, I've met amazing people, have developed great peer support networks, have been part of advocacy groups, and now I have this huge group of friends across the nation. And it's given me an opportunity to give back to our society. So, when that call for volunteers hits your inbox, please apply. And don't be discouraged if your application is not accepted, because timing really, really is everything. You know, my first two applications were not accepted, and I think it's because our society has different needs to fill at different times. The committees, the board, and the staff, they do their best to fit the volunteers to the right tasks. There's really an emphasis on a member skill set. So, my very first volunteer position at OGS was as an abstract reviewer. And today, I am fortunate to chair the 2018 OGS Program Committee. And I can say without hesitation that volunteering for OGS and getting to know the wonderful staff and my stellar committee has been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my career. And so, thank you. Well, thank you, Felicia. And thanks, everybody, for your presentations. What I love about this webinar is how meta it is. All of you have volunteered today to talk about volunteering. So, we have time for questions. And of course, you can submit your questions for our speakers in the question box on the left-hand side of the window. And our first question is, has being a volunteer changed your experience at the annual meeting? What are tradeoffs of OGS engagement versus enjoying the destination? Does someone want to take that question? I'll take it. I personally feel like that it's because you're there to engage the organization. And you're thinking about all that it offers. And this huge array, PFD Week is an amazing array of things to see and do. And it has a very different flavor than some of the other meetings. But I find it's just a very different part of the brain and the soul that get together with the fellow volunteers to achieve a goal. So, yeah, it's not, you know, shopping and it's not seeing a show downtown at whatever city that you're at. But I feel like, for me, it enriches the experience of what we're already doing for the organization and what we're getting out of the meeting. But I'm certainly curious to hear everybody's thoughts. Yeah, I agree, Charlie. I think attending the annual meeting the very first time was a bit overwhelming. You know, you don't quite have your people or your place. And even though our meetings are somewhat smaller than others, it's still big. But being a volunteer, when I then attended a meeting, it really gave me a sense of belonging. Like there was some reciprocity. There were people I had worked with. There was mutual trust. And all of these things really improved the quality of the meeting for me. Great, guys. Another question. I have always found it meaningful to volunteer for a young sub-specialty like FPMRS, but how does volunteering change as a society matures? Charlie, you're the oldest. Can you answer that one? True that. Yeah, it's a fascinating process to, you know, when something is new, the goals that you're trying to meet seem much more concrete. And Matt Barber's presidential address in Chicago was entitled, The End of the Beginning, which I thought was a great way to say we're transitioning from a youthful organization to a more mature one. The challenges are very different, but I will say in this past year, we've had a number of situations where products or platforms or projects or courses that we had already planned or already had in the works, suddenly by the vagaries of things that happened in the public arena, developed new relevance and new energies. So I feel like, you know, our challenge as a semi-mature organization is to figure out how to use the muscle and the mechanism that we've already built to deepen our relevance. For me, some of that comes with communications with FDA, that news organizations reach out to us to help interpret some of the noise that's out there. CBS and 60 Minutes may be not so much, but they certainly, we have this relevance that will take unexpected turns. And, yeah, sometimes some things land in your lap that you weren't prepared for, but because we have the depth of both staff and volunteers, and we know the people to reach out to, and some of the people on this call have certainly received those calls where we snowball because of the relevance we have in the space, and we've got to cope with it. So I feel like, you know, part of the challenge of being where we are as an organization is that we don't always know what the next chapter or the next major challenge is going to be, but we certainly have the apparatus to deal with it. So I think it's different than a young organization where you're just trying to establish what are the parameters and what we do. That was certainly a big part of what OGS was doing 20 years ago, was helping to develop subspecialty. But I think it's a great question. That's great. I have another question, which is, how do you handle feeling like as a volunteer you're not making an impact within the organization? And, of course, I'm talking here to lots of people who have made big impacts, but you must have had some time in your volunteering career in which you weren't sure you were making an impact. I think it's the small impacts that in the long run make a big difference. And I believe that serving on a committee is really a critical way for a member to influence OGS PATH. You have no idea until you're on that committee, you know, the impact that you can have. And it's not immediate. That is for sure. But people remember your ideas, and then they might repeat them later on. You know, as we said, timing is everything. But I really do think that service on a committee is an individual's way to influence the PATH of OGS, hands down, no doubt. I would agree with that. And I would add that as a board, we try and at the committee level, we certainly try to encourage a variety of viewpoints, at the end of which you need to speak with a single voice. So we have all been on the side of an argument, which is not where the group went. But you should always feel like you have been heard and that your viewpoints are part of the process. And I would offer to anybody who's interested in volunteerism or having experienced a different experience where you truly felt like you weren't heard, I've got a problem with that. And so that is not part of our organizational mission. So even if you're feeling like you're not listened to, that's not what we strive for. The answer may not be what you hope for, but it's the reason we have a committee organization. And I think to Felicia's point, just participation, representing your voice. We think in terms of our constituency, who are we representing when we are in those meetings? I think, I hope, we'll give meaning to any volunteer at any point in their career. Charlie, I think I heard from somebody in this group that I've taught them how to disagree productively with people that you respect. Right. Yeah, that's what we strive for. And I feel like even if the answer is a little different than you might have chosen as an individual, you feel like you're part of the process. I wanted to ask the group, how has volunteering helped you to be better at your own institution? And Melina, you touched on this a little bit, but I kind of wanted to ask everybody this question. I know for me that I've learned some leadership skills through AUGS, and I think I'm a better leader here at my own institution because of AUGS experiences. I agree. I think a previous, when I was seeking advice about this process, a previous, a past president of AUGS said that this was the best preparation that they had had on their way to becoming department chair of a major organization. And I think that speaks a great deal. You know, I think for me at a more junior level, being on the writing committee has taught me how to evaluate literature and the evidence that's out there and to be able to kind of put that together in a document, which is helpful for even in your own division or department or hospital if people are trying to write policies that are based on evidence. So that has been particularly helpful for me. And again, working with people who are more senior to you that you respect and maybe even are a little bit, you know, nervous to be around or talk to, it kind of helps you build your confidence in your, you know, your skill set and your knowledge base and what you bring to the table. Sherelle, I actually agree with you completely because I think one of the things that it brings back to the institution, especially when you're dealing with people who are at very different levels in their career, is just being able to kind of, you know, have that collegiate interaction, which is part of developing the leadership skills that you then bring to your institution. And then you can talk to people who are much more senior and feel way comfortable, way more comfortable. So it's a skill. It's a tough skill, actually. Everybody, how about mentorship? I see myself mentoring people here at my own institution, and sometimes I mimic some of my own mentors from OGS. Yeah, I agree. I mean, even in the planning for this call, a great quote went out from one of the panelists saying, when I thought about the people whose careers I wanted for myself, they were OGS folks. And that includes the mentorship. So I certainly think about my own mentors who demonstrated how participation in OGS added value to their own careers. And I think that's an important thing for us to mentor going forward. I got to give props to Deb Myers and Adam Steinberg for putting together the leadership program, which is sort of formal mentorship in the OGS organization. But there are lots of different ways to receive and then to distribute mentorship in our careers. I think OGS is really good at it. Well, guys, I think we're nearing the end. Any other questions before we close up? Well, a big shout out and thanks to everybody. On behalf of the OGS Education Committee, I'd like to thank Felicia Lane, Charlie Raritan, Sherelle Carter-Brooks, Melina Weinstein, and, of course, everyone who joined us today and everyone who listens to this in perpetuity. Our next webinar will be Essentials of Pelvic Floor Ultrasound and Pelvic Surgery. It will be presented by Dr. Elisha Graz and Melina Weinstein. Again, thanks for coming back. And that will be on July 18th. And thank you, everybody. And have a good night. Thank you, Dr. Sutkin. Thanks to the panel. It's been great. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everyone.

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