Practice overview for referring physicians
Lee C. Zhao, MD
Professor of Urology and Plastic Surgery, NYU Langone Health
Co-Director, Gender-Affirming Surgery. Director, Reconstructive Urology
Fellowship
Send a case for review
A patient who has been told nothing more can be done is a reasonable referral, not an imposition. I am glad to review records or discuss a case before any formal referral.
Helpful with any referral: the referral question, operative notes, imaging, and prior endoscopy findings. Incomplete records should not delay the call.
The practice
I do complex and redo reconstruction of the ureter, urethra, and lower urinary tract, and gender-affirming surgery: more than 700 operations a year, more than 400 of them robotic, multi-port and single-port. The common thread is the redo, the radiated field, and anatomy someone has already operated on. Those are the cases I want.
I developed robotic buccal mucosa graft ureteroplasty and robotic appendiceal onlay ureteroplasty for proximal strictures, robotic posterior urethroplasty, free-flap urethroplasty, robotic peritoneal flap vaginoplasty, and robotic vaginectomy with gracilis interposition to reduce fistula rates after phalloplasty.
Cases I treat
Ureter and upper tract
- Strictures at any level, including proximal and panureteral
- Buccal mucosa graft and appendiceal onlay ureteroplasty
- Ileal ureter and renal autotransplantation
- Ureteroenteric strictures after urinary diversion
- UPJ obstruction and redo pyeloplasty
Urethra and posterior
- Anterior and posterior urethroplasty
- Vesicourethral anastomotic stenosis after prostatectomy
- Radiation injury of the posterior urethra, including free-flap repair
- Rectourethral and urethrovaginal fistula
Bladder and diversion
- Urinary diversion and diversion revision
- Bladder neck reconstruction and closure
- Robotic intracorporeal reconstruction
Gender-affirming surgery
- Robotic peritoneal flap vaginoplasty, primary and revision
- Phalloplasty and metoidioplasty, with urethral complications of both
- Complex revisions after surgery elsewhere
The week
| Day | Where |
|---|---|
| Monday | Flex day: the Manhattan VA (VA NY Harbor), assisting other surgical services, or calls with new patients about what we can offer |
| Tuesday | Clinic |
| Wed to Fri | OR at NYU Langone (Tisch Hospital and Kimmel Pavilion), 7:30 am start |
I travel often to teach. The OR schedule holds every week I am in town, and my team can always reach me.
Referrals
- New patients
- 646-825-6300
- Referrer email
- ReconstructiveUrology@nyulangone.org
- Direct
- Lee.Zhao@nyulangone.org for physician-to-physician questions
New consults do not start with an in-person clinic visit. Once records arrive, my fellow calls the patient to discuss what we can offer.
Collaboration
I direct the NYU Genitourinary Reconstructive Surgery Fellowship. I am a member of TURNS, the Trauma and Urologic Reconstruction Network of Surgeons, and I co-founded CORRUS, a multi-institutional collaborative on ureteral reconstruction. I have more than 290 publications, including more than 250 peer-reviewed journal articles, and I contributed to the AUA urethral stricture guideline. If you are building a multi-institutional study in reconstruction or gender-affirming surgery, or you want to visit and watch cases, write to me directly. If you are a patient who found this page, start with the number above.