2021 Annual George W. Drach, MD Distinguished Visiting Professorship in Urology

Featuring Kathleen Kobashi, MD, FACS, FPMR

Kathleen Kobashi is Head of the Section of Urology
and Renal Transplantation at Virginia Mason
Medical Center and Director of VM’s Pelvic Floor
Center. She received her B.A. at Wellesley College
and her M.D. at Hahnemann University in
Philadelphia, and completed her urologic residency at
the University of California, Irvine followed by a
Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery
(FPMRS) fellowship at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles
before joining Virginia Mason in 1999.
In addition to her passion around clinical medicine,
Dr. Kobashi is dedicated to research and education
of patients and future urologists. She founded the
VM FPMRS fellowship in 2003 and a new Urology
residency in 2014, for which she serves as the
Program Director. She is a Clinical Professor at
the University of Washington in Seattle.
Dr. Kobashi has authored more than 100 peerreviewed
articles and book chapters on topics related to
urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse and has been
invited faculty on the subject around the globe. She is
the Immediate Past President of SUFU (Society for
Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine and Urogenital
Reconstruction), President-elect for the Western
Section AUA, and serves on the American Board of
Urology Examination Committee and as the Associate
Editor of the new AUA journal, Urology Practice. She
received the 2006 Continence Care Champion award
from the National Association for Continence, the
prestigious Paul Zimskind Award from SUFU in 2010,
and a Presidential Citation from the American
Urological Association in 2013.