India-born cancer surgeon to head Mount Sinai’s Urology dept

India-born Ashutosh K Tewari, one of the foremost leaders in robotic prostate surgery and prostate cancer research in the world, has been named director of Urology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

India-born Ashutosh K Tewari, one of the foremost leaders in robotic prostate surgery and prostate cancer research in the world, has been named director of Urology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Located in New York City, The Mount Sinai Medical Center is a 1,171-bed, tertiary-care Internationally acclaimed teaching hospital.

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Dr Tewari comes to the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai after serving as director of the Lefrak Center for Robotic Surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Last year, the American Urological Association awarded him the prestigious Gold Cystoscope Award for his outstanding contributions to the field of urology and urologic oncology.

“Dr. Tewari is a top-flight urologist and physician scientist of national and international repute who will position Mount Sinai as a urologic center of excellence, offering world-class urologic care, practice-changing research, and patient-centered care,” said Dr Dennis S. Charney, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“Dr. Tewari is known for his work in developing the fields of robotic prostatectomy, and outcomes research using novel medical imaging and genomics research.”

Dr Tewari pioneered robotic prostatectomy and he has performed more than 5,000 robotic prostatectomies, and other minimally invasive procedures for various urological cancers.

He has managed a robust urologic training program at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center since 2004. Dr. Tewari has trained more than 30 fellows and residents in robotics and has made presentations on innovation in robotics at major medical meetings in the United States and around the globe.

Dr. Tewari has a solid commitment to research and has published in many peer reviewed journals. He is actively pursuing studies of the radiological phenotype of aggressive prostate cancer using novel imaging and genomics.

“My vision for the Department of Urology is to create a highly engaged team committed to world-class care, strong faculty and trainee development, and innovative research and discovery,” said Dr Tewari.

Collaboration will be a core part of his vision, he explained. He anticipates partnerships with Departments including Surgery; Medical Oncology; Radiation Oncology, The Lillian and Henry M. Stratton-Hans Popper Department of Pathology; Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences, Radiology, and the Tisch Cancer Center, as well as integrating activities with Institutes, such as The Charles Bronfman Institute of Personalized Medicine, and the Translational and Molecular Imaging Institute. He intends to build bridges with science and medicine leaders in New York and around the world.

“We will try to establish a seamless bed-to-bench side and bench-to-bedside model for our collaboration,” said Dr. Tewari.

Dr. Tewari was awarded his medical degree from the GSVM Medical College in Kanpur, India, where he received 18 gold medals and honors. He obtained specialised urologic training at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute in Lucknow, India; residency training at the Vattikuti Institute of Urology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit; as well as fellowships in urologic oncology at the University of California San Francisco and the University of Florida at Gainesville.

He is a member of the editorial board of the Gold Urology Journal and BJU International and is a reviewer for three urology peer-reviewed journals: the Journal of Urology, and the Journal of Endourology. In May, he published the authoritative textbook, Prostate Cancer: A Comprehensive Perspective.