Lapitan, Marie Carmela M.

Dr. Marie Carmela Lapitan is a Research Professor of the Institute and also a Clinical Professor of the College of Medicine. She is a practicing Urologist of the Philippine General Hospital. Mela’s research interests include urinary incontinence and voiding dysfunction, surgical safety, and surgical site infection. She has been actively involved in several research collaborations including the Cochrane Incontinence Review Group, the International Consultation on Incontinence, the Southeast Asian Urology Thinktank and the National Institute Health Research Unit on Global Surgery. Her researches include the Cochrane systematic reviews on open retropubic colposuspension for urinary incontinence in women, on urodynamics for urinary incontinence and for voiding dysfunction, and on drug treatment for postoperative urinary incontinence, the global pilot study of the WHO Safe Surgical Safety checklist, several epidemiologic studies on urinary incontinence and lower urinary tract symptoms among different global populations, and on global prevalence of surgical site infection. She is currently involved in several research studies of the Globalsurg Collaborative on quality and outcomes of cancer surgery, surgical nutrition and surgical site infection prevention, is spearheading the research initiatives of the Department of Surgery on surgical site infection surveillance, surgical care standards implementation, operating room efficiency, and surgical antimicrobial prophylaxis. Finally, she has recently joined the European Association of Urology Female LUTS Guidelines Panel as its vice chair and is involved in the systematic reviews underpinning these guidelines. Mela is the Deputy Director for Research Operations of the National Institutes of Health and is the Vice Chair for Research of the Department of Surgery of the College of Medicine / Philippine General Hospital. She is an editorial board member of the Acta Medica Philippina and an associate editor of Urological Science and Frontiers in Urology.