What Is Your Name And What Do You Practice?
Hi, My name is Dev Malley and I practice at Advanced Urology here in Atlanta, Georgia.
Where Are You From?
So I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I went to elementary school in Pittsburgh [and I] moved to Detroit, Michigan for middle school, came back to Pittsburgh for high school and stayed there.
Tell Us About Your Training
I went to medical school in Philadelphia and then I moved to Pittsburgh to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center where I did my general surgery as well as my urology training. Then, I moved to Manhattan and I went to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and I did my urologic oncology fellowship there.
Why Did You Choose Your Specialty?
So I chose urology mainly because of the variety of cases that I get to do. So, one day I may be removing someone’s bladder for bladder cancer and then I’ll build them a new bladder using their own intestines, which is awesome, a great surgery [and] very rewarding. The next day it may be treating someone with kidney stones, they come with a lot of pain and we treat them endoscopically: no surgery whatsoever, no incisions and they go home and they’re very happy and they’re doing much better. And some of the simpler things that you can just treat with medications but it’s great, rewarding, exciting and you’re never bored.
What Are Your Areas Of Interest?
I’m a urological oncologist, and as such, my fellowship training is in treating cancer, and I love that. Every week, I’m usually removing several organs for cancer, and it’s really rewarding to tell someone that they’re cancer-free. I knew I’d love that and that’s absolutely very exciting, what I didn’t realize I would love until I started practice was treating some of these other conditions, which are not as sexy, but have a tremendous impact on someone’s life. Something like, someone constantly going to the bathroom: an overactive bladder syndrome. One of the first patient that I treated with an overactive bladder and I put an Interstim device in her and when I saw her afterward, she was crying [because] she was so happy. She was happy mainly because it changed her life. I never realized until I put myself in her shoes, listening to her response, the impact I made in her life. She was telling me she was constantly going to the bathroom, she would avoid hanging out with friends, she’d wear dark clothes, she was afraid they could smell the urine on her, she wasn’t getting much sleep because she’s constantly waking up to go to the bathroom at night. It had such a tremendous impact on her life and now she’s going back to normal and that’s when I realized there’s so many awesome things that we can do in urology, and as a result, I started to focus a lot more on treating overactive bladder. In fact, I’m one of the very first centers of excellence for Interstim with Medtronic and I treat many other conditions now instead of excellence for treating BPH with Urolift. It’s one of those things that I realized [when] treating these functional outcomes [and] it has a huge impact on someone’s life, [that] until you empathize and you put yourself in their shoes and you see what they go through and you make that difference and you see how they’re doing afterwards, that really makes you happy.
What Do You Want Your Patients To Know About You?
What I want my patients to know is that, the way I think of medicine is, my job is to educate the patient on the options they have, the pros the cons. That way they’re an informed decision maker making their own decisions. My job is to give them that information and then when they want to do something I’m going to give them the best possible result, technically as well.
Anything Else You Would Like Patients To Know About Yourself Or Your Practice?
What I want my patients to know is that I think its an honor to practice medicine. In that sense, anytime someone comes to see me, I’m going to make sure I do my absolute best to get the best result.