School of Medicine
Showing 1,701-1,710 of 5,162 Results
-
Brooke Gurland, MD, FACS
Clinical Professor, Surgery - General Surgery
BioPelvic floor and functional bowel disorders encompass a wide range of symptoms and conditions that affect people of all ages and genders. These include constipation, obstructed defecation, fecal incontinence, rectal prolapse, pelvic organ prolapse, irritable bowel disorders, and urinary and sexual dysfunction. While rarely life-threatening, these conditions profoundly affect quality of life, self-confidence, and daily function — and they deserve the same serious, compassionate attention as any other illness.
I am a colorectal surgeon and lifestyle medicine physician specializing in anorectal disorders and pelvic floor dysfunction. I serve as Research Director of the Stanford Pelvic Health Center, where I lead a multidisciplinary program that brings together colorectal surgery, urogynecology, urology, gastroenterology, and pelvic floor physical therapy to provide integrated, whole-person care.
My surgical training was at Cleveland Clinic, where I spent nearly a decade building and leading a multidisciplinary pelvic floor clinic and performing hundreds of combined procedures with colleagues in urology and urogynecology. I was among the early adopters of robotic surgical techniques for women with combined vaginal and rectal prolapse, and developed expertise in complex procedures including repair of intestinal and rectovaginal fistula. Earlier in my career, I established a Pelvic Floor Center at Maimonides Medical Center, where I received a Jahnigan Career Development Award studying multicompartment prolapse in elderly women. I joined Stanford's Department of Surgery, Division of Colorectal Surgery in 2017.
My research spans surgical outcomes, pelvic floor quality of life, and patient-centered technology. I am the principal investigator for the Stanford Pelvic Health Registry, a longitudinal database of over 475 patients with rectal prolapse followed since 2018. I was a 2020–2021 Stanford Biodesign Fellow, and my current work includes development and validation of disease-specific patient education tools. I believe that patients who understand their condition make better decisions — and recover better too.
I am also board-certified in lifestyle medicine. Prevention, diet, exercise, pelvic floor physical therapy, and behavior change are not secondary to surgery in my practice — they are the first line of care. Surgery, when it is needed, works best in patients whose lifestyle has been optimized. This philosophy guides how I counsel patients and how I train the next generation of surgeons and clinicians.
When I am not in the clinic or operating room, I can be found at the farmers market, fermenting something in my kitchen, practicing yoga, or spending time with my dog. -
Geoffrey Gurtner
Johnson & Johnson Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Emeritus
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsGeoffrey Gurtner's Lab is interested in understanding the mecahnism of new blood vessel growth following injury and how pathways of tissue regeneration and fibrosis interact in wound healing.
-
Laura Gwilliams
Assistant Professor of Psychology and, by courtesy, of Linguistics
BioLaura Gwilliams is jointly appointed between Stanford Psychology, Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute and Stanford Data Science. Her work is focused on understanding the neural representations and operations that give rise to speech comprehension in the human brain. To do so, she brings together insight from neuroscience, linguistics and machine learning, and takes advantage of recording techniques that operate at distinct spatial scales (MEG, ECoG and Neuropixels).
-
Beth Habelow
Lecturer, Surgery - Anatomy
BioPhysical therapist, lecturer
-
Pardes Habib
Instructor, Neurosurgery
BioPardes Habib, MD/PhD, is an Instructor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University School of Medicine. His research focuses on how human neural stem cells (hNSCs) drive brain repair after chronic stroke. By integrating state-of-the-art imaging (MRI/PET) with spatially resolved multi omics, he maps structural and molecular remodeling after stroke and aims to identify diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers that drive the development and refinement of precision, cell-based therapies.
Dr. Habib completed dual doctorates in Neurology/Neuroscience (MD/PhD) and Biochemistry (PhD) at RWTH Aachen University in Germany, where he later earned a Habilitation (Venia Legendi) in Experimental Neurology—an academic qualification comparable to an associate professorship.
As head of Aachen’s Translational Stroke Research Group, he investigated neuroprotective and neuroinflammatory pathways and illuminated the roles of inflammasome activation and the unfolded protein response in acute ischemic stroke.
Since joining Dr. Gary Steinberg’s laboratory at Stanford in 2022, Dr. Habib has focused on decoding the molecular crosstalk among hNSCs, immune cells, and host neural circuits. His long-term goal is to transform these insights into targeted interventions that restore function and quality of life for patients living with the aftermath of stroke. -
Laura Michele Hack
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences (Public Mental Health and Population Sciences)
BioDr. Laura M. Hack is an Assistant of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System (PAVAHCS). As Associate Director of the Novel & Precision Neurotherapeutics Program at the Stanford Center for Precision Mental Health, Dr. Hack leads a translational, patient-centered research group that designs and implements mechanistic clinical trials for biologically informed subtypes of Mood, Anxiety, and Trauma-related Disorders (MATRDs).
Her work spans repurposed pharmacologic interventions (e.g., guanfacine), neuromodulation techniques (e.g., repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation [TMS]), and therapies involving altered states of consciousness (i.e., ketamine, MDMA, psilocybin, and anesthesia-induced dreaming). Across these modalities, Dr. Hack's focus is on tailoring treatment based on objective, biologically anchored markers that match the patient’s profile.
Dr. Hack also directs the Stanford Precision Psychiatry Clinic, a high-touch, high-tech consultation service designed to support individuals with a primary diagnosis of major depression and often comorbid MATRDs. This clinic integrates the investigational use of high-definition neuroimaging (personalized brain circuit scores) with symptom profiling, neurocognitive testing, pharmacogenomic analysis, inflammatory biomarkers, and standard blood work. The aim is to generate individualized insights that inform treatment decisions and help patients better understand the biological underpinnings of their condition—often reducing self-blame and empowering engagement in care.
In her role as Deputy Director as well as Ketamine and Education Lead of the Precision Neuromodulation Clinic (PNC) at PAVAHCS, Dr. Hack specializes in delivering evidence-based, FDA-cleared interventions including TMS and intranasal ketamine for Veterans experiencing treatment-resistant depression, frequently in the context of comorbid PTSD.
