World Cancer Day

At Ross University School of Medicine, we are proud of our network of alumni that are helping leading the charge against cancer, including Ryan Day, MD ’12 at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and notably Joshua Mansour, MD ’12 at Stanford University as a Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation & Cellular Immunotherapy Fellow.

Growing up in a family of physicians, Dr. Joshua Mansour started volunteering in the local community medical clinics and hospitals while young. He thoroughly relished in the experience and was immediately drawn to the positive patient interactions. With the encouragement of his family to explore his diverse interests and not pressure him in to medicine, Dr. Mansour pursued a career in private wealth management and finance after college. However, he continued to yearn for the patient and physician relationship in healthcare.

Early on his life, Dr. Mansour developed a dedication to helping others that continued through his college years. During his time at Vanderbilt, he volunteered as a medical interpreter at the Siloam Family Health Center, an underserved community clinic in Nashville. He also served as a mentor for children going through dialysis at Camp Okawehna in Tennessee and helped co-found Greatest Gift, a non-profit organization in organ transplantation, that is very much active in the local community and medical campuses across the nation today. Upon graduation from Vanderbilt, with a B.S. in Psychology and Spanish, where he was Chancellor Scholar, Joshua pursued a career in finance.

With both of his parents being physicians, his father a Neurologist and his mother an ER and Family Medicine physician, Joshua and his brother were both intimately exposed to both the pragmatic impact of patient care and rigors of the lives of physicians. His parents never pushed him or his brother to pursue medicine, in fact, they encouraged them to explore their other interests and passions. During his business career, Dr. Mansour’s desire to be at the forefront of patient care continued and echoed stronger. He wanted to help them as they battled a variety of illnesses and offer support during their weakest moments, while in all pursuing research to better the evolvement of medicine as a whole. He understood the capacity of strength, commitment, and courage that was necessary to not only become a physician, but endure many of the challenges faced daily and was ready. Dr. Mansour believed during those telling moments he was pursuing medicine for the right reasons.

On the recommendation of his parents, who experienced positive interactions with RUSM medical students, residents and attendings – Joshua applied to Ross University School of Medicine. Additionally, with RUSM’s tri-semester start dates, Dr. Mansour did not have to wait another year to apply to medical school and was able to start his MD journey immediately. Joshua describes his time at RUSM as unbelievable. The common denominator during those years were his fellow classmates that he has shared such wonderful memories. This led to lasting relationships, as many of these people remain some of his closest friends and trusted colleagues.

Upon graduation, Joshua matched in Internal Medicine at Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. Dr. Mansour chose to specialize in IM because an Internist plays a vital role as the patient advocate, engaging with an array of specialists and medical teams, to manage the progress of each patient. IM allowed Dr. Mansour to play an integral role in preventive medicine, as he developed long lasting relationships with his patients. Furthermore, Internal Medicine offered a complex diversity of patients, allowing Dr. Mansour to gain experiences in several different facets of the medical field, providing intellectual stimulation while discussing and solving medical challenges.

Fueling his interest in patient population, pathology and pharmacology, Dr. Mansour continued on to the Medical University of South Carolina as a Hematology/Oncology Fellow where he was named Chief Fellow for the 2017 – 2018 academic year. Throughout his Residency and Fellowship, Dr. Mansour continued to work with the Hematologic Malignancies Department and Bone Marrow Transplant Centers of each institution, which compelled him to further immerse himself in the dynamic field of bone marrow transplantation. He then became board certified in both Hematology and Oncology.

Currently Dr. Mansour is a Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation and Cellular Immunotherapy Fellow at Stanford University. During his fellowship, he works on halting the patients’ disease process with early intervention and consolidated effort to give them the best chance for survival. With the numerous new medical trials and innovative cellular immunotherapies, the progress has been significant and continues to evolve at an accelerated rate the last few years. Supporting his patients through the grueling process, as they battle acute and chronic health issues, Dr. Mansours is humbled by his patients’ courageous fight for a healthy life and continues to champion their strength against terminal diseases.

Dr. Mansour hopes to continue to expand on his involvement in patient care and clinical research throughout the community. With the rapid advancement of cellular immunotherapy and CAR-T cell therapy, he would like to utilize the knowledge and experience he has gained to help patients with disease refractory to initial therapy. The interpersonal, academic and research aspects of bone marrow transplantation and cellular immunotherapy continues to fascinate Dr. Mansour and he hopes to make significant contributions to the field of hematology/oncology and the scientific community as a whole.