Michael R. van Balken earned his MD from the Catholic University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, and received his urological training at the Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen as well as at the Policlinico G.B. Rossi, Verona, Italy. In 2007 he completed his PhD thesis at the Free University Amsterdam on the subject: “Percutaneous Tibial Nerve stimulation in Lower Urinary Tract Disorders’. He is now a staff urologist in the Dept. of Urology at the Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem, The Netherlands, his main fields of interest being urinary incontinence, reconstructive urology and the communication in healthcare. Starting 2014 Michael became Program Director ('opleider'​) Urology, responsible for the training of urological residents in Arnhem. Dr. van Balken is the (co-)author of over 40 peer-reviewed publications, 5 books and over 100 abstracts. He was board member of the Dutch Urological Association (NVU), is board member of the EAU Section of Female and Functional Urology, associate member of the EAU Section of Genitourinary Reconstructive Surgeons, board member of the Dutch Steering Committee on Urinary Incontinence and participated in several guideline committees regarding the subject. He became TOPuroloog 2013 (Best Dutch Urologist) and won the 'Opleidingsprijs 2017' for Best Residents Program in the Netherlands.Michael is a strong believer in 'compassion for care'​ and shared decision-making ('participatory healthcare'​), as well as strongly engaged in human rights issues like non-medical circumcision in children and (the violation of) medical neutrality. He uses Blogs and Social Media to draw attention to these subjects. Since 2015 main focus of his interest is on adapting medical information to the standards of (health) illiterate (urological) patients. For this he started the 'Aap-Noot-Nier'​-project (Dutch) and the Easy-Peesy'​-project (International), as well started research on the subject and joined the EAU Patient Information working group, the board of the EAU Patient Office (Vice-Chair) and the ECO Inequalities Network focus group on Health Literacy and Patient Education.Specialties: Functional and Reconstructive Urology, complicated open surgery, use of Social Media in (urological) care, use of simplified educational material in (health) illiterate patients