Kathleen Kobashi, MD, FACS, is Head of the Section of Urology and Renal Transplantation at Virginia Mason Medical Center and Director of VM’s Pelvic Floor Center.  She received her B.A. at Wellesley College and her M.D. at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, and completed her urologic residency at the University of California, Irvine followed by a Female Pelvic Medicine and Reconstructive Surgery (FPMRS) fellowship at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles before joining Virginia Mason in 1999.

In addition to her passion around clinical medicine, Dr. Kobashi is dedicated to research and education of patients and future urologists.  She founded the FPMRS fellowship in 2003 and a new Urology residency in 2014, for which she serves as the Program Director.  She is a Clinical Professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. 

Dr. Kobashi has authored more than 115 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on topics related to urinary incontinence and pelvic prolapse and has been invited faculty on the subject around the globe.  She is the current President of SUFU (Society for Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine and Urogenital Reconstruction) and serves on the American Board of Urology Examination Committee and the Editorial Board of the new AUA journal, Urology Practice.  She chaired the 2017 AUA/SUFU stress urinary incontinence guidelines panel and is a mentor for the noteworthy AUA Leadership Program, of which she was a graduate of the first class in 2005.  She received the 2006 Continence Care Champion award from the National Association for Continence, the prestigious Paul Zimskind Award from SUFU in 2010, and a Presidential Citation from the American Urological Association in 2013.