Gronau, 23 September 2026. A great achievement for the Department of Urology, Urological Oncology and Robot-Assisted Surgery at St. Antonius Hospital Gronau: At the annual congress of the German Society of Urology (DGU) in Düsseldorf, Maike Tenbrake, Physician Assistant in the Department of Urology, received the Wolfgang Knipper Award, worth €3,000. This is already the second time the award has gone to Gronau. In 2023, Ines Effing received the award for her commitment to training operating room nurses in Tanzania.
Maike Tenbrake has been working at St. Antonius Hospital Gronau since 2017. She initially worked as a nurse in the central operating department. In 2019, she began studying to become a Physician Assistant and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 2022. Physician Assistants work as part of the medical team and perform delegated medical tasks under the responsibility of physicians. In this role, they provide an important link between physicians, nurses and other healthcare professionals.
In her bachelor’s thesis, the 32-year-old examined different surgical approaches for urothelial carcinoma – malignant tumours arising from the lining of the urinary tract. A radical cystectomy involves the removal of the urinary bladder and can be performed using either open or robot-assisted surgery. Tenbrake compared the two approaches. Her conclusion: robot-assisted radical cystectomy may offer some advantages, but based on the available scientific evidence, neither method has been shown to be clearly superior.
In addition to her work as a Physician Assistant, Tenbrake has been actively involved in the continuing education and professional development of nursing staff since 2019. She gives presentations at urological congresses and shares her expertise through the urological education platform uro-tube-pflege.de. Together with 2023 award winner Ines Effing, she is also a member of the DGU’s working group for assistance and nursing competencies.
The Wolfgang Knipper Award is presented in memory of Hamburg urologist Wolfgang Knipper (1920–2005) and is supported by Coloplast GmbH. It recognises professionals from nursing and medical assistance professions who have demonstrated exceptional personal, social or scientific commitment to continuing education and professional development. The recipient is selected by a jury.
“I am very pleased to receive this award and would particularly like to thank Dr Armin Secker, who encouraged me to apply,” says Maike Tenbrake. Until recently, she also served as deputy chair of the DGU working group for assistance and nursing competencies. “I simply try to pass on the knowledge I have gained during my studies and in my daily work and, in doing so, help as many colleagues as possible.”
This year’s annual congress of the German Society of Urology took place in Düsseldorf. The Department of Urology at St. Antonius Hospital also had another reason to celebrate during the congress. At a reception, the Gronau team marked 20 years of successful surgery using the da Vinci surgical system. Another major milestone was the 25,000th robot-assisted radical prostatectomy, performed in Gronau on 23 June this year.
