Mani Menon, MD

Dr. Menon is a pioneering cancer surgeon whose body of work has helped to lay the foundation for modern robotic surgery.

He serves as Chief of Strategy and Innovation in the Department of Urology for the Mount Sinai Health System. He also serves as a Professor of Urology, Director of Education and Director of the Precision Prostatectomy Program in the Department of Urology at Icahn Mount Sinai and Center of Excellence for Prostate Cancer at The Tisch Cancer Institute.
Dr. Menon, has personally performed more than 6,000 robotic prostatectomy surgeries and is considered to be one of the foremost surgical innovators in the world.
Dr. Menon is a recipient of several awards such as the Gold Cystoscope award of the American Urological Association; the Dr. B.C. Roy Award from the President of India, which is the highest award given by the Government of India for achievements in medical science; the Hugh Hampton Young Award; the Keyes Medal, recognized as the greatest individual citation awarded by the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons; and the St. Paul’s Medal from the British Association of Urological Surgeons. He has been a visiting professor at more than 50 institutions across the globe, where he has lectured, performed robotic surgery, and trained hundreds of surgeons. Dr. Menon’s team has been involved in the establishment of more than 35 robotic surgery programs in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Dr. Menon has published more than 1,000 manuscripts, book chapters, and abstracts, primarily in the field of robotic surgery, kidney transplantation, and urolithiasis. His work has appeared in the major urological journals as well as in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the American Journal of Physiology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and The New England Journal of Medicine. He is a member of the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons, and the Society of Scholars at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater. He is an honorary member of both the American Urological Association and the European Association of Urology, a recognition reserved for their most distinguished members.
Dr. Menon graduated from JIPMER in Pondicherry, India, and completed his residency at the Brady Urological Institute at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. He served on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis from 1980 to 1983, when was appointed Founding Chair and Professor of the Division of Urological and Transplantation Surgery at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In 1997, Dr. Menon became Chair of the Department of Urology at Henry Ford Hospital and in 2000, was appointed the first Director of the Vattikuti Urology Institute, of which he is now Director Emeritus.

After earning his medical degree from the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) in India, he completed his residency in urology from the Brady Urological Institute at Johns Hopkins in 1980.  As a resident, he helped his mentor, Dr. Patrick Walsh, develop a technique that allowed measurement of androgen receptors in the human prostate for the first time.  Dr. Menon has subsequently pioneered robotic surgery techniques that have revolutionized the field of urological oncology and laid the framework for extending robotics to other surgical disciplines, influencing the surgical care of millions of patients worldwide.  His work has been credited with establishing the da Vinci surgical platform across many branches of surgery.
In June 2017, an exhibit titled Many Voices, One Nation at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History incorporates some of Dr. Menon’s personal effects.