VALDOSTA — Frank Glover, medical director and owner of the Urology Institute, recently expanded his business to Azalea City.

Glover started his business 19 years ago in Thomasville, but it didn’t take 19 years for the business to expand.

“We opened up the first location in 1998 in Thomasville,” Glover said. “Then, about four years later, we opened in Moultrie, four years later we opened in Albany, and now we are opening in Valdosta.”

Coming to Valdosta is a way for Glover to better serve current customers and to expand his customer base, he said.

“We decided to move to Valdosta because there is a real need for excellent urological care,” he said. “The population is underserved by evidence of the fact that I see several hundred patients from Valdosta every year in Thomasville.”

Many of the patients are older, he said. The new location will cut down on travel time for residents who cannot travel as easily as others.

“So, by me locating here, it is more convenient for patients to receive urological care in their community,” he said.

Glover offers a wide variety of service for both men and women including kidney-stone treatment.

Glover described South Georgia as a part of the kidney-stone belt.

“We have the highest rate of kidney stones in the country,” he said. “A lot of patients will get excruciating pain, nausea and vomit. Often they go to the emergency room and are diagnosed with kidney stones.”

Glover treats patients who call him on site, he said.

“Patient calls my office, they know they have a kidney stone, he said. “We blast the stone, go home pain free and go to work the next day.”

Glover uses shockwave lithotripsy to treat kidney stones, he said.

The patient lies on a table, and Glover focuses shockwaves on the stone, and it breaks down.

The small pieces are passed through urine. The process takes about 20 minutes.

Glover said people who have kidney stones are often looking for immediate relief because the stones inflict a a large amount of pain.

“Kidney pain is so severe, women that have had natural child birth say it is much worse,” he said. “Kidney stone pain is the worse pain a human can feel, and being able to pick up the phone and get instant relief is something that people are grateful for.”

Glover also offers help with bladder-control issues.

Some women find themselves having to go to the bathroom often, getting up at night to urinate, having episodes of bladder leak where they are having to wear pads, or having difficulty emptying the bladder completely and constantly having urinary tract infections, he said. Half of Glover’s patients are women who have bladder-control problems.

“Twenty-five percent of women will have bladder-control problems in their life, so it is very, very common,” Glover said. “This is very distressing for them, because they have to wear pads, and they don’t like being wet all the time. … We can fix these problems in one day with out surgery, and they are back to normal again.”

Glover offers every treatment modality for bladder-control problems, he said, and offers the best and more recent medical treatments.

For men, Glover can help with impotency.

Fifty percent of men older than the age of 50 have difficulty achieving and maintaining an erection.

“We offer the latest medical and surgical treatments to restore a man’s sexual abilities,” he said. “I do the most penile implants in South Georgia and North Florida. I am able to do them on an outpatient basis. So, they come in, do the surgery, and go home. They don’t have to go to the hospital and have people see their name. They have the privacy of the ambulatory surgery center In Thomasville.”

Those are the three most frequently used services, but he also has an array of other services including issues that relate to prostate cancer, the enlargement of the prostate gland, vasectomies and a few other procedures.

Because the The Urology Institute has four locations, and Glover is the only urologist, he relies on mid-level staff to operate his offices when he is not there including several registered nurses, a nurse anesthetist, surgical techs, medical assistants and receptionists.

He plans to be in Valdosta on Wednesdays and Fridays.

Glover does not require patients to have a referral to schedule an appointment, he said.

Some people feel like they need a referral to see a specialist, that is not the case with Glover.

The Urology Institute, 2601 Bemiss Road, Suite N, is open 8 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, call (229) 474-4383. 

Jason Smith is a reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times. He can be contacted at 229-244-3400 ext.1257.