The ICS Board of Trustees are pleased to announce that Helmut Madersbacher is the winner of the ICS 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award. This award was created to honour an individual who has made a lifetime commitment and a lasting contribution to the advancement of science, education, clinical practice or public awareness in the field of continence.
Helmut Madersbacher received his medical degree from the University of Innsbruck, obtaining the Austrian specialist degree in Urology in 1969. Completing his PhD in 1975, Helmut was appointed Associate Professor of Urology at the Innsbruck University Hospital in the same year. His main interest became neuro-urology and between 1973 and 1993 he was consultant urologist in a nearby Spinal Cord Injury Centre. Helmut set up a neuro-urology service there and started the neuro-urological care of children with myelomeningocele at the University Hospital of Innsbruck. In 1995 he became head of a newly founded Neuro-Urology Unit at the Innsbruck University Hospital. He retired from this position only recently due to Austrian state regulations; but he still works in a private practice in a private hospital near Innsbruck as a Urologist.
Helmut’s relationship with the International Continence Society (ICS) started in 1973 when he attended the 3rd Annual ICS Meeting in Copenhagen. He became a member of ICS and has remained with the society ever since. In 1984 he chaired the ICS Annual Meeting in Innsbruck. During his membership years he was a trustee, member of the ICS Educational Committee and chairman of the Neuro-Urology Promotion Committee. In his 44 years as a member of the ICS he has attended all but two Annual Meetings.
Prof Helmut Madersbacher has conducted outstanding research and has trained many professional healthcare providers involved in the field of NeuroUrology and incontinence from all over the world. He is a highly regarded neuro-urologist, an outstanding speaker and teacher and has lectured on behalf of the ICS in many meetings all over the world. In addition, he has published extensively in the field of Neuro-Urology and his scientific work is frequently referred and cited in scientific papers, journals and books in the field of Urinary Incontinence and Neuro-Urology.
Helmut Madersbacher’s contribution to the ICS and research to the field of Neuro-Urology incontinence and functional disorders warrants the ICS Lifetime Achievement Award which the Board of Trustees will present to him during our annual meeting in Gothenburg, in 2019.