Stanford University
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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. -
Christopher Gurley
Ph.D. Student in Religious Studies, admitted Autumn 2022
BioChristopher Spencer Gurley, Jr is a Ph.D. student in the Religious Studies Department at Stanford University, where he specializes in American Religion and is pursuing a Ph.D. minor in history. His research explores the intersection of African American history and U.S. Catholic cultural life during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is specifically interested in the religio-racial histories of U.S. Catholicism, Black identity constructions, Catholicism in the rural south, and the socio-historical politics of class and belonging regarding Black masculinity and manhood.
Before joining the Stanford community, he studied U.S. History at Georgetown University as a Patrick Healy Fellow. Chris earned his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Tennessee State University and his Master of Theological Studies degree from Vanderbilt Divinity School. He also holds a Master of Arts in Religion degree from Yale Divinity School, where he was chosen to become an Elie Wiesel-Martin Luther King, Jr. scholar at Oxford University. -
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.
