Of Colombian heritage, Koch was born Yvonne Piedrahita in Nashville. Not long after her birth, the Piedrahita household moved to South Florida.

Koch attended high school at the Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami and found that, like her dad, she easily achieved sterling grades in math and science. Which is a good thing, given that she claims to have "no artistic abilities whatsoever!"

After earning a B.S. degree in biological science from Florida State University in 1996, Koch wanted to attend a medical school where students put a premium on mutual uplift, instead of cutthroat competition. She applied to Meharry and was admitted.

"I liked Meharry," recalls Koch. "I also had family in Nashville, so it was nice." Toward the end of her Meharry tenure, Koch decided to focus on urology. "I liked urology because you generally help people improve their quality of life, and they generally do fairly well," Koch observes.

"And you have a nice mix of clinic and surgery," she continues. "The average urologist's practice can be very varied."

Her next stop after Meharry was a urology residency at Case Western Reserve University's Case Medical Center, in Cleveland. That was followed by a female pelvic medicine fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, in Dallas.

"My fellowship in Dallas was primarily focused on incontinence cases," Koch says. "So that's pretty much what I tend to deal with."

Now she's delighted to be back in Miami. And if some want to view Koch as a gender role model, that's fine with her.

"Urology is generally a male-dominated field, so I hope I can make female medical students aware that women practice urology, too," says Koch, who has a two-year-old son and is expecting another boy.

"I would hope that some people would say: `You know, there is a woman there. It can be done!'