Sarah Faris, MD

My name is Sarah Faris, I'm a reconstructive urologist at the University of Chicago, and I've been in practice here for six years. I was in college and I did a summer in the operating room, and I was an athlete and I remember walking into an operating room and it felt like home. And I just knew it was what I was meant to do.

One of the things that drew me to urology specifically, and reconstructive urology, is I want to make people's lives better, their quality life better. So you pee multiple times a day, and sexual intimacy is also incredibly important, but it's all about having the conversation with the patient about what their goals are.

And I love that piece of it, of what I do, is it's really about trying to figure out a balance in what I can offer and what I can do to make your life better based on what you value and what you need in your life. I perform specific procedures for reconstructive urology, and that involves reconstruct of the urinary tract. So if someone has a fistula or a stricture, so if it's in-- involves the ureter, it'll be in the body, and that's the drainage to [INAUDIBLE] kidney. And so I do those robotic and open as necessary. And then I do fistula repairs, open robotic, and then urethral stricture repairs, where sometimes we need the inside of the mouth.

And then I also do procedures for overactive bladder, so like a pacemaker for the bladder, or Botox for the bladder, and then prosthetics. So for men who have complications after treatment for prostate cancer, we do things like slings, artificial urinary sphincters, and also penile implants for erectile dysfunction. I did a GRS fellowship which focuses on male reconstruction. I was fortunate during my fellowship that it also had-- a piece of it was also focused on female reconstructive as well.

So I have a unique skill set from that. And because of that, University of Chicago has been such a great place for me to practice because I get to work with so many wonderful physicians in so many different subspecialties. And that's really given me the opportunity to become much more comfortable and facile working throughout every area of the body, and on very, very complex patients. And I really enjoy that piece.