Dr. Joshua Sterling

I think the future is really going to be being able to tailor a pre, peri, and post-operative antibiotic course to a patient.

Understanding where they are, how their other health parameters play into it, you know, instead of just saying, regardless of what else is going on in the patient, if this comes back, this is what we're going to do.

Taking into account, you know, are they immunocompromised?

Is there a reason where, you know, maybe they don't have as much reserve as another patient?

So we should err on the more cautious side in terms of treating things.

And then really, bacteria do help us.

And so, you know, again, moving the conversation away from sterilization and complete cleaning of the GU tract to restoring that balance so that everything is functioning the way that it should be.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

I'm really excited about what we're going to talk about today.

Yeah, so I didn't have a very straight path to reconstructive urology.

I kind of tried a bunch of other things and ended up there.

My background is in engineering.

Growing up, I was always a tinkerer, building stuff with my dad and things like that.

And when I got to residency, I...

The only thing I knew I didn't want to do was oncology and then slowly kind of realize that there was this world where not everything was set, where you can kind of, for lack of a better word, play with what you're going to do for the patients and really, you know, kind of personalize the treatment that you're giving them.

And that's kind of really what sucked me in.

And once I figured that and it just approached everything like it's an engineering problem and a problem set, I was hooked and there was no going back.

Yeah, so I think I really got...

I didn't pay much attention to it in training.

I was just kind of, you know, your culture would pop up, you're treated.