Meet Dr. James Kuan
Urology For Men is a starting point in overcoming the information gap surrounding many men’s health issues. Discussing sensitive men’s health topics can be difficult. My hope is that men will find this to be a place for answers or a starting point for more discussion. Some of the men’s issues include: sexual dysfunction (erection and ejaculation), low testosterone, Peyronie’s disease, vasectomy, scrotal and penile disorders and prostate enlargement (BPH). Visit the site often; I will be updating it on a regular basis with blog posts to keep you informed on the latest in men’s health. I look forward to sharing more of my practice, experience and information with you.
“Urology chooses us!” That’s what happened to me, and this is how I answer the question, “why did you choose urology?” I grew up in a small farming town in rural Canada, and when I started med school, I assumed I’d become a family doctor–now I find myself a urologist.
Under the mentorship of one of my attendings during my Urology residency at the University of Western Ontario, I became interested in prosthetic urology, sexual medicine and andrology (men-specific conditions). After residency, I pursued sub-specialty training in Urologic Trauma and Reconstruction, completing my fellowship at the University of Washington. The skills I developed during the program inform and enhance the clinical and surgical care I provide.
A guiding principle in my practice is to provide care that optimizes and improves a man’s quality of life, and a large part of my practice is devoted to men who suffer from urinary and sexual issues after prostate cancer treatment (surgery or radiation). As a prosthetic urologist, I am able to offer men comprehensive care for urinary incontinence (artificial urinary sphincter and urinary sling) and erectile dysfunction (penile implant). Sadly, many men are never told that options exist to treat these problems, and in that we fall short as a specialty.
I am board certified with the American Board of Urology and a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Canada. I am an active member of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America, American Urological Association, Canadian Urological Association and the King County Medical Society. I am the past Chief of Urology for Swedish Medical Center and the only fellowship trained sexual medicine / prosthetic urologist at Swedish.
Alas, life is not all about being a urologist. Work keeps me busy, but time away from work is equally important. I have lived in the Pacific Northwest since 2005 and call Seattle my home, in spite of my Canadian roots. Presently, I am a fine art photography student at Photographic Center Northwest, a non-profit photography school in Seattle, and am working towards completion of this program in 2019. Like surgery, I approach photography as an apprenticeship, and my work is shot both on digital and film cameras. I’m currently working on an exhibition that commemorates a tragic event that occurred in my hometown 30 years ago, when I was just entering high school, that changed the community forever. All the images used on this site are my own!
I caught the travel bug as a high school exchange student in New Zealand. Taking time to get away is my key to recharging. My other passion cooking (one of the main reasons I travel), and I have often said that if I did it all over again, I might go to cooking school. Needless to say, I don’t see that happening anytime soon, so instead I tinker many weekends in my kitchen, and my love of food has eclipsed my distant memory of doing triathlons, having completed Ironman Wisconsin in 2008. I still have my bike, so maybe I’ll make a comeback some day.