Anne Mongiu, MD, PhD, is a colorectal surgeon and says her own experience with cancer shaped both her career trajectory and how she cares for her patients.
Dr. Mongiu was a couple years into her surgical training when she was diagnosed with cancer. “Getting that phone call, even when you practice medicine, knocks you off your feet. You stop listening when they say that single word: cancer,” she says. “Suddenly, as a healthy young woman, I found myself scared, my previously certain future now rapidly becoming unclear, meeting an army of different specialists, and finding myself as the patient, no longer the provider.”
Switching roles, she says, forced her to re-evaluate the patent experience and changed her perspective on the delivery of medical care. “After a year of chemotherapy, radiation, and surgeries I was able to return to, and ultimately complete, my training focused upon pelvic surgery and malignancy,” she says. “This was in large part due to the compassionate care and support I received from my treatment team: my oncologist who held my hand when I cried, my surgeon who answered my million worried questions. The entire experience has informed the surgeon I have become, and I hope I can pay this forward to those who entrust me with their care.”
Dr. Mongiu treats a wide range of intestinal health conditions, including cancers of the colon, rectum and anus, as well as benign anorectal (hemorrhoids, fissures, fistulas), pelvic (rectal prolapse and accidental bowel leakage), and abdominal/colonic disorders (IBD, recurrent diverticulitis) that have failed medical management. She utilizes minimally invasive surgical techniques, including laparoscopic and robotic surgery, to help her patients return to living their lives as quickly as possible. She performs sphincter sparing surgery whenever appropriate.
