David M. Albala

Dr. David M. Albala graduated with a geology degree from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. He completed his medical school training at Michigan State University and went on to complete his surgical residency at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Following this, Dr. Albala was an endourology fellow at Washington University Medical Center in St. Louis, Missouri under the direction of Ralph V. Clayman. At Washington University, he was part of the team that performed the first laparoscopic nephrectomy in humans. He practiced at Loyola University Medical Center in Chicago and rose from the ranks of Instructor to Full Professor in Urology and Radiology in 8 years. After 10 years of Loyola, he became a tenured Professor of Surgery (Urology) at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. At Duke, he was Co-Director of the Endourology fellowship and the Director for the Center of Minimally Invasive and Robotic Urological Surgery. He has overall 215 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has authored 3 textbooks in endourology and 4 books in general urology. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Robotic Surgery and serves on the editorial board for Current Opinions in Urology, Reviews in Urology, and Urology Index and Reviews. In addition, he serves as a reviewer for 8 other surgical journals. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Large Urology Group Practice Association (LUGPA). LUGPA is the only nonprofit urology trade association that represents over 25% of practicing urologists in the United States. He is also currently the Visiting Professor of Urology at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University, College of Medicine. Dr. Albala has been identified (Standford University-led study) as one of the top 2% of scientists in the world! Dr. Albala is ranked 1,063 out of 64,516 of his field (urology & nephrology).

At the present time, he is Chief of Urology at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, New York. He is considered a national and international authority in laparoscopic and robotic urological surgery and has been an active teacher in this area for over 20 years. His research and clinical interest have focused on robotic urologic surgery. In addition, other clinical interest includes minimally invasive treatments for benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH) and the use of fibrin sealants in surgery. He has been a Visiting Professor at numerous institutions across United States as well as overseas in countries such as India, China, Iceland, Germany, France, Japan, Brazil, Australia, and Singapore. He has done operative demonstrations in over 32 countries and 23 states. He has trained 16 fellows in endourology and advanced robotic surgery.

Dr. Albala is a past White House Fellow (1995-1996), who acted as a special assistant to Federico Peña, Secretary of Transportation, on classified and unclassified public health related issues.