Dr. Gregory J. Mancini

UT Medical Center Surgeon Greg Mancini says losing weight will obviously reduce the number of visits to the doctor, but it can dramatically cut insurance costs.

"Dr. Scott's expertise and fellowship training in laparoscopic surgery greatly enhances our minimally invasive and bariatric surgery capabilities at UT Medical Center," said Dr. Greg Mancini, medical director of the Tennessee Weight Loss and Surgery Center at UT Medical Center.

Scott earned his medical degree from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.

Physician Spotlight: Dr. Gregory J. Mancini
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Physician Spotlight: Dr. Gregory J. Mancini
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However, Shaw never met Dr. Gregory J. Mancini.
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As assistant professor of surgery at the University of Tennessee Medical Center-Knoxville (UTK), Mancini is proving that those who "can" teach and teach well.

"For me, teaching at a research or teaching hospital meant that teaching was not just something that I would do on the side, but it was something that I would be doing full time," explained Mancini."When you teach, more often, you are learning more than you are teaching.Being in a teaching environment, I am tremendously taught by my colleagues and students.I am often the recipient of knowledge, and maybe it comes down to just being selfish â€" I find it very rewarding."

"Selfish," however, is not a word others would use to describe Mancini.Dr. Mancini, as director of the Tennessee Weight Loss & Surgery Center, has been actively involved in helping those patients who struggle with obesity, fight this devastating condition.

"The rates of obesity are staggering and the trends are scary," commented Mancini.

Fortunately for his students and patients, when asked to join the faculty at UTK, Mancini happily agreed, but Mancini was not always convinced that medicine was in his future.

Mancini grew up in Atlanta and later moved to New York City to attend Columbia University for his undergraduate degree.After college, however, Mancini worked as a business consultant.He found the work unfulfilling and began considering other career options."My brother, who is also a surgeon, told me he loved his job but cautioned that it was hard work and a big sacrifice and suggested I look at other things.I tried but kept finding myself drawn toward medicine," related Mancini.

When Mancini received his invitation to medical school, he considered not going to the interview."I had almost convinced myself that I didn't need to do it," but he did go and it was during the interview that he realized "this is what I really want to do."Mancini recalled, "I left the interview praying that I would get in.Sometimes you don't know what you have until you can potentially lose it."

And as the Mancini story goes. . .his prayer was answered â€" "I haven't doubted a day in the last ten years that I'm doing what I was meant to do."

Mancini went back to Georgia and attended Mercer University in Macon for medical school.While there, he fell in love with surgery and later came to Knoxville, where he did his general surgery residency at UTK for 5 years.He left temporarily to attend the University of Missouri at Columbia for a fellowship in minimal invasive surgery, and following completion, was asked to come back to join the faculty of UTK.

Since July 2006, Mancini has been training medical students and residents in surgery, focusing on laparoscopic surgery.During his own training, he performed gastric bypass and gastric banding surgery and realized how important the surgery, and more specifically, the issue of obesity, was for our country.

"I was skeptical about weight loss surgery because I didn't think it was very useful, but that was an uniformed opinion.Taking care of these patients during my fellowship, I saw just how much of an impact weight loss surgery could have, not for cosmetics, but for the ameliorization of other medical problems.We are seeing staggering rates of diabetes, hypertension, and hypercholesterolemia, and much of it is related to weight.If we reduce weight, we see all their diabetes, their high blood pressure problems, and their high cholesterol problems go away."

Along with joining the faculty of UTK, Mancini was asked to start a weight loss center.He collaborated with the medical center and launched the Tennessee Weight Loss & Surgery Center, whose vision was to be a comprehensive weight loss center that focused on three core elements: 1) the surgical treatment of obesity, 2) the medical treatment of obesity when surgery is not the best alternative, and 3) to create new research to better treat obesity in the future.His efforts have resulted in a unique center that doesn't just focus on one aspect of weight loss, but on how all these elements can work together.

Mancini "preaches" that weight loss surgery has nothing to do with making people look good, it's about changing their health.

"For a surgeon, this is very interesting because we aren't used to thinking about treating medical diseases with surgery; we treat surgical diseases with surgery," explained Mancini."However, the results are amazing.We are seeing 85 percent of diabetes in patients disappear, which also prevents all the complications with kidneys and nerves that result from having diabetes for 20 or 30 years.We can really change the direction of their lives."

And based on the statistics, many lives are being redirected.As Mancini noted, last year in the United States, almost 200,000 weight loss surgeries were performed, compared to about 350, 000 gallbladder surgeries."It has become almost as common," said Mancini.

Obviously, Mancini stays busy working in the Center and with teaching, but this self-described "workaholic" still spends as much time as possible with his wife of 7 years, Melissa, and their two children, John, 2½, and George, 6 months.
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Mancini also appreciates the East Tennessee area in which their families are growing up together.

Dr. Greg Mancini, a surgeon with UT Medical Center says, "Cost containments have been difficult for the health care industry and a lot of that is being passed on to the individual family and employee."

"Dr. Scott's expertise and fellowship training in laparoscopic surgery greatly enhances our minimally invasive and bariatric surgery capabilities at UT Medical Center," said Dr. Greg Mancini, medical director of the Tennessee Weight Loss and Surgery Center at UT Medical Center.

Physician Spotlight: Dr. Gregory J. Mancini
...
However, Shaw never met Dr. Gregory J. Mancini.
...
As assistant professor of surgery at the University of Tennessee Medical Center-Knoxville (UTK), Mancini is proving that those who "can" teach and teach well.