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Professor Bhaskar K Somani

MRCS, FEBU, DM, FFSTEd, FRCS (Urol)

Training and education

  • Basic surgical training - Wales, Northamptonshire and the West Midlands

  • Higher surgical training in urology - Scotland

  • Fellowships - India and France

Experience

Prof Somani is a world renowned endourologist and a high-volume surgeon. He has performed more than 3500 ureteroscopy procedures (surgery to treat kidney stones). His outcomes show a stone-free rate of 96% and a minor complication rate of 4%, with nearly 80% of patients being able to go home on the same day as their surgery.

Prof Somani is also the clinical director of the south coast regional lithotripsy services (a treatment that uses shock waves to break down kidney stones). More than 5,000 procedures have been carried out under his supervision since 2012. He is also the Editor in Chief of Journal of Clinical Urology, the official journal of British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS).

His main clinical interests are:

  • Benign prostate disorders and interventions for them (TURP, Rezum, PAE, Urolift and lasers)
  • simple and complex urinary tract infections (vaccines, D-Mannose, hippuric acid, probiotics, intravesical antibiotics)
  • simple and complex kidney and bladder stone disease
  • kidney and bladder stone disease
  • haematuria (blood in urine)
  • general urology (circumcision, vasectomy, scrotal procedures)
  • application of artificial intelligence to enhance clinical decision-making, improve patient outcomes, and optimise healthcare delivery

Prof Somani has recently started using a new laser technique called 'pop-dusting' to remove kidney stones. You can watch a video on YouTube that shows how it works.

Prof Somani has developed a portfolio of activities to raise public awareness of the symptoms, prevention and treatment of kidney stones, including appearing on BBC Radio 4's Inside Health programme, BBC South television and ITV Meridian News. You can watch Prof Somani's recent interview about kidney stone disease on the ITV Meridian website.

Key achievements

Awards and prizes

  • ‘John Anderson’ award by British Association of Urological Surgeons for 2026
  • National N3 (highest level) of National Clinical Impact Award (NCIA) in England, reflecting the greatest level of National impact (2026-2030)
  • Best paper - British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) Endourology annual meeting 2021
  • ‘Zenith Global Health Award’ – Surgical specialities special recognition award - 2021
  • ‘Golden Cystoscope’ award by British Association of Urological Surgeons for 2021
  • ‘Arthur Smith Endourology award’ by Endourological Society– 1stand only surgeon from UK to win this award, 2020
  • Best paper – Annual BAUS meeting, Endourology paper for the year.
  • Honorary Fellowship (FRCS) given from Royal college of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow, 2020
  • Winner – clinical research award: EAU section of urolithiasis (EULIS), 2019
  • Winner - Unity 101 annual community award, Southampton, 2020
  • Winner – best paper in the literature award: EAU section of urolithiasis (EULIS), 2017
  • Joint winner- ‘NHS emerging leader’ (Thames Valley and Wessex region, 2015)
  • Finalist - ‘NHS innovation award’ (Thames Valley and Wessex region, 2014)
  • Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) urology section – prizes (2013, 2014, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2022)

Positions held (national and international)

  • Elected member - BAUS executive academic committee (2016-2018), endourology committee (2019-2021).
  • NICE specialist advisor for interventional procedures and ‘invited expert’ for urological infections guidelines
  • European Association of Urology (EAU) live surgery committee member
  • EAU urolithiasis guidelines panel member (2022- to date)
  • EAU undergraduate panel member (2021 to date)
  • Endourological society UK representative and committee lead for DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion)
  • Board member and Research Lead for EAU Endourology group
  • Board member and Research Lead for European School of Urology

Research

Prof Somani has published over 950 peer reviewed papers, 850 published conference papers/abstracts and 15 book chapters. He is on the editorial board of six journals and a reviewer for 15 journals (including British, American and European urological journals). He is one of the most published endourologist in the world.

Benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH)

Prof Somani has published extensively (60 papers) on minimally invasive benign prostate treatments including TURP, prostate artery embolization (PAE), UroLift (prostate stapling), Rezum (prostate steam), Aquablation (robotic prostate surgery) and laser prostate surgery (HoLEP, ThuVEP).

Kidney and bladder stones

Prof Somani is one of the most published surgeons in the world with primary and secondary research in prevention and treatment of stone disease (over 300 papers).

Urinary tract infections (UTIs)

Prof Somani has published research (over 40 papers) on simple and complex UTIs, including use of vaccines (Uromune), sugar (D-Mannose) and bladder instillation of antibiotics.

Haematuria (blood in urine)

Prof Somani has published research (20 papers) on haematuria and its management.

You can find a full list of his publications on PubMed.

Education

Prof Somani has published extensively in the field of medical education (over 50 papers)

Artificial Intelligence

Prof Somani has published extensively in the field of AI (over 60 papers).