A Letter of Gratitude
To My Patients, Fellow Physicians, Colleagues, Friends, and the Central Florida Community:
There are moments in life when words seem inadequate for the depth of gratitude one feels. As I close this chapter of my urology practice, this is one of those moments.
I began my private practice of urology in the Orlando and Central Florida community in July 1987, after completing my residency training in urology. What followed was a professional journey that I could never have fully imagined—a journey made possible not simply by the practice of urology, but by you.
For nearly four decades in private practice—and across almost fifty years devoted to the field of urology through training, service, research, teaching, and patient care I have had the extraordinary privilege of caring for multiple generations of families. In some families, I have cared for four and even five generations. You trusted me with your health, your fears, your most private concerns, and sometimes with your very lives. That trust has always been sacred to me.
Before entering private practice, I also had the honor of serving our country as a physician in the United States Navy, attaining the rank of Commander and serving as Chief of Urology in Orlando. Whether wearing the uniform of my country or the white coat of a community urologist, my purpose remained the same: to serve.
When I opened my practice in 1987, it was small. With the confidence and support of our patients, referring physicians, employees, hospitals, and community, that small practice grew. In time, it became part of Physicians Alliance, which grew to include six urologists practicing from six locations across Central Florida.
I am profoundly grateful to the physicians who entrusted their patients to me and allowed me the privilege of participating in their care. Medicine is never practiced successfully in isolation. Every referral represented professional trust, and I have never taken that trust for granted.
You also supported something equally important to me: research, education, prevention, and community service.
Together, we participated in clinical research and community health initiatives that changed the way I practiced urology. Our work in prostate cancer—particularly our commitment to thoughtful active surveillance and the use of evolving diagnostic tools to help appropriately selected men avoid unnecessary treatment—became an important part of the identity of the Center for Urology.
But our accomplishments were never mine alone.
You were my partners.
You participated in our research programs. You supported our community projects. You attended our educational programs. You permitted students, physicians, researchers, and future generations to learn from the experiences we shared. And most importantly, you allowed me to teach you about your own health.
That may be the part of my career of which I am most proud.
I have always believed that a physician’s responsibility extends beyond writing prescriptions and performing operations. We must teach. I wanted you to understand your diagnosis, understand your choices, ask questions, and participate intelligently in decisions about your own body.
So as we say goodbye to the Center for Urology, I ask one thing of you:
Please continue that education.
Share what you have learned with your children and grandchildren. Encourage the men in your families to take prostate health seriously. Encourage the women and men you love to seek preventive care. Ask questions. Understand your laboratory results. Understand your medications. Seek second opinions when necessary. Become an active participant in your healthcare.
And then teach someone else.
In that way, the education that occurred inside our examination rooms will continue long after the doors of this particular office have closed.
On April 30, 2026, I faced one of the most difficult decisions of my professional life when I closed the private urology practice that had been such an important part of my life and my family’s life for nearly four decades.
There is sadness in closing these doors, but there is no sadness when I look back at what we accomplished together.
There is gratitude.
To my patients: thank you for trusting me.
To the families who returned generation after generation: thank you for allowing me to become, in a small way, part of your family.
To my fellow physicians: thank you for your referrals, collaboration, counsel, friendship, and professional confidence.
To my nurses, medical assistants, administrators, office staff, research collaborators, hospitals, laboratories, and community partners: thank you for helping me provide the level of care I believed our patients deserved.
And to my family: thank you for sharing me with urology and with this community for all these years. Every physician’s career is also a sacrifice made by the people who love that physician.
Almost fifty years in urology went by remarkably quickly.
I leave this chapter knowing that I gave this specialty and this community the very best that I knew how to give. In return, you gave my family and me something immeasurable: your love, your confidence, your friendship, and your trust.
Those gifts will remain with me for the rest of my life.
Although the doors of the Center for Urology have closed, my concern for you has not. Wherever the next chapter of my life and urology takes me, the thousands of patients and families whose lives have intersected with mine will remain part of my story.
You are forever in my thoughts and prayers.
May the Great One continue to bless you, keep you, and grant you and your families health, wisdom, peace, and many years of life.
With profound gratitude and affection,
Abraham Lincoln Woods III, MD
“Doc Woods”
Center for Urology
Orlando / Altamonte Springs, Florida
Private Practice of Urology: July 1987 – April 30, 2026
To heal when we can, to comfort always, and to teach so that knowledge continues from one generation to the next.
