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How This MSK Center Takes Care of Younger Patients With Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancers
How This MSK Center Takes Care of Younger Patients With Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancers
How This MSK Center Takes Care of Younger Patients With Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancers
MSK’s Center for Young Onset Colorectal and Gastrointestinal Cancer is the first clinic of its kind in the world dedicated solely to the specific needs of patients under 50. This is the story of one of those patients, Rebecca Genter Lerner, a 32-year-old diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer just weeks before her wedding day.
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Only outpatient providers are included in the survey. Healthcare providers who only work in the hospital or in urgent care are not included in the survey. Pathologists or researchers who do not provide direct care to patients do not have reviews.
Memorial Sloan Kettering has locations throughout New York City, Long Island, New Jersey, and Westchester. These locations offer many services, including screening, chemotherapy, and medical testing.
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center
Fellowships
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Board Certifications
Internal Medicine; Nutrition; Gastroenterology
I am a gastroenterologist who focuses on taking care of gastrointestinal issues in people with cancer. I have a particular interest in working with people who are at high risk for developing colon cancer and rectal cancer because of hereditary conditions, such as Lynch syndrome, as well as those with young onset colon and rectal cancers. I also provide specialized nutrition support for people with cancer.
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I chose gastroenterology because it is a wonderful combination of clinical patient care, endoscopic procedures, and research. I love caring for people with a wide variety of diseases and enjoy being part of the entire spectrum of cancer-related care, from screening to end-of-life care.
I have expertise in performing a variety of gastrointestinal endoscopic procedures, including colonoscopy and upper gastrointestinal endoscopy. I am also skilled at performing advanced endoscopic techniques, such as complex polypectomies and direct percutaneous endoscopic jejunostomies (placing a feeding tube directly in the small intestine). Cancer can sometimes create obstacles to daily activities, such as eating, and many of the procedures I perform help patients feel better by taking care of these quality of life needs for them.
In recent years, we have been able to reduce colon cancer rates because more people are getting screened appropriately. Though this is important progress, we have begun to see an increase in the number of younger people being diagnosed with this disease. My research aims to find out why this number is rising. I am also investigating how best to care for younger people with colon cancer to ensure we are addressing their specific long-term concerns and goals, such as fertility.
Awards and Honors
Florence Lefcourt Award for Endoscopic Research and Public Education Outreach, New York Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (2015)
Colleagues
Doctors at Memorial Sloan Kettering work as teams, with specialists from all different areas. This allows us to consider all your needs together, and to give you the best possible care.
Memorial Sloan Kettering's doctors and scientists are constantly developing new treatments for cancer. MSK is typically running hundreds of clinical trials at a given time.
You may be able to participate in a clinical trial even if you are new to MSK. Search our online directory to find trial information and see more about who can participate.
Visit PubMed for a full listing of Dr. Mendelsohn’s journal articles. Pubmed is an online index of research papers and other articles from the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health.
At MSK, we’re committed to delivering the best care to every patient. We use feedback from our patients to continue to improve our care. We also post patient reviews online to help you make healthcare choices. Learn more about our patient experience reviews.
Disclosures
Doctors and faculty members often work with pharmaceutical, device, biotechnology, and life sciences companies, and other organizations outside of MSK, to find safe and effective cancer treatments, to improve patient care, and to educate the health care community.
MSK requires doctors and faculty members to report (“disclose”) the relationships and financial interests they have with external entities. As a commitment to transparency with our community, we make that information available to the public.
Robin Mendelsohn discloses the following relationships and financial interests:
Medscape Provision of Services
If you’re a patient at MSK and would like more information about your doctor’s external relationships, please talk with your doctor.
The information published here is for a specific annual disclosure period. There may be differences between information on this and other public sites as a result of different reporting periods and/or the various ways relationships and financial interests are categorized by organizations that publish such data.
This page and data include information for a specific MSK annual disclosure period (January 1, 2021 through disclosure submission in spring 2022). This data reflects interests that may or may not still exist. This data is updated annually.
Learn more about MSK’s COI policies here. For questions regarding MSK’s COI-related policies and procedures, email MSK’s Compliance Office at [email protected].
