Development of the association
The aims of the association were always to develop and support Urology Nurses. Spring meetings were held at the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) annual conference and BAUN held their own winter meetings. These provided valuable networking and learning opportunities for urology nurses throughout the United Kingdom. 2001 marked the inaugural BAUN Annual Conference; this remains the highlight of the BAUN urology events calendar in winter every year.
Education committee
As BAUN continues to grow and develop; the Education Committee are committed to developing and providing a broad range of study days and webinars to meet our members needs. We aim to provide a broad range of topics to reflect the diversity of urological nursing. The association has also produced various guidelines for practice, you can find our guidelines below.
Education & Resources Upcoming events Contact us
Working with other organisations
As it has grown BAUN has forged links with the Departments of Health throughout the United Kingdom, various publishing groups, other nursing organisations, universities and pharmaceutical companies.
CURE
Craigavon Urological Research and Education, otherwise known as CURE, was founded in the Urology Department of Craigavon Area Hospital [CAH], Northern Ireland in the mid 1990s. The impetus for the development of the charity came about following a discussion between a patient who had been treated at CAH and Aidan O’Brien, Consultant Urologist. Working closely with Aidan and the CURE committee was a name well known to BAUN, Eileen O’Hagan.
Eileen was the first nurse form Northern Ireland to be elected to BAUN Council and in so many ways led a path that others have been very glad to follow. At the outset the aims were really quite simple and were captured in the name. CURE was established to raise funds to support the twin issues of urological research and education for both urologists and urological nurses. In the early days, when the education model for urologists in training required the completion of a research project, CURE provided much needed funding to urologists to complete their research. Hand in hand with the support offered to urologists undertaking research, both Eileen and Aidan were strongly convinced that CURE should also support nurses to undertake education initiatives as they sought to develop their own practice. To that end CURE assisted many local nurses to attend urology nursing conferences, including BAUN and EAUN, in addition to also supporting urology nurses to enrol in programmes of urology education that began in the early 2000s at Ulster University. Unfortunately Eileen O’Hagan became seriously ill a few years after she was on BAUN Council and she had to step down from that role that she so enjoyed. I was lucky enough to replace her, if indeed anyone could ever do that, and then commenced my own journey with BAUN. BAUN Council took the decision to initiate an Aileen O’Hagan Award for BAUN members as well as establishing an Eileen O’Hagan Lecture to be delivered each year at BAUN Conference.
Unfortunately the EOH Award ceased a few years ago, but the Eileen O’Hagan Lecture, with its aim of offering supportive engagement aimed at persuasively changing practice without confrontation, remains a fixture at BAUN Conference to this day. CURE provided some monies in the early day to support both these initiatives.
With the establishing of the International Journal of Urological Nursing, CURE took a decision to offer some modest annual financial support to ensuring that IJUN was not an overwhelming financial burden to the association. This financial support has continued to today and in a small way has been something of a support to the work of BAUN Council and the IJUN Editorial team in ensuring that a decade and more after its inception, IJUN continues to play an important role in spreading the urology nursing message both at home and abroad. Thank you to Jerome Marley for the information and historical context.