Dr. Gangemi earned his medical degree in 1997 from University of Reggio Calabria medical school in Catanzaro. He went on to attend the bioethics post-graduate course at the Institute of Bioethics of the “Sacred Heart” Catholic University in Rome, Italy. During the graduation ceremony, Dr. Gangemi met His Holiness Jean Paul II who left on him an everlasting positive influence. Many years later, this positive impact would resurface in his work on the management of futile surgical care at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and in his collaborations on this topic with the American College of Surgeons (ACS) Curriculum Committee, the American Board of Surgery (SCORE), and the Surgical Ethics Consortium.
After completing his internship at University of Padua, he joined the Italian Army as a lieutenant medical officer and served a tour abroad in the NATO mission “K-FOR” as a NATO Medical Instructor for the Training and Advisory Team. This experience resumed in a civilian capacity many years later when he assumed the role of preceptor and instructor for the Wilderness Medicine class at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). After fulfilling his military commitment, he completed his surgical training at University of Padua, graduating Summa cum Laude.
In 2004, Dr. Gangemi decided to leave his home country and continue his professional advancement in the USA. He worked as a post-doc researcher in the islet transplant laboratory of University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC), and progressed to the rank of senior research specialist. During these busy years, Dr. Gangemi became a prolific scientist and contributed to the advancement of the field with a landmark study on the surgical treatment of diabetes known as the “UIC Protocol.” Thanks to his scientific achievements, he was granted the status of permanent citizen under the National Interest waiver by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service. After obtaining his American medical license and English proficiency, Dr. Gangemi completed the general surgery residency program at UIC where he was awarded the 2010 Resident Research Award. Dr. Gangemi then went on to receive further MIS and robotic surgery training at the same institution, becoming one the earliest adopters of the robotic approach in general surgery. His experience with the surgical treatment of diabetes prompted him to pursue further training in bariatric surgery, eventually becoming a Fellow of the American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (FASMBS). Among other accolades, in 2017 he was awarded the America’s Top Surgeons Recognition by the Consumers’ Research Council of America. Dr. Gangemi has witnessed and advanced through three distinct surgical eras: open, laparoscopic, and robotic surgery. He has successfully managed thousands of general surgery patients, interchangeably utilizing these three surgical approaches in both acute and elective settings for an extremely vulnerable and under-served patient population at a major tertiary academic center and its affiliated community hospitals in the West Side of Chicago. Dr. Gangemi has embraced the robotic platform and firmly believes that this novel technology is carving the way for a new frontier of surgery, where computer-assisted surgical technology will change the field forever. Within UIC, he has served as the chair of the robotic surgery committee and the director of the former Surgical Skills Laboratory. He pioneered a comprehensive, standardized, and proficiency-based curriculum for the laparoscopic and robotic training of general surgery residents which has hence been looked to as a model for establishing similar initiatives at other academic centers across the USA. Dr. Gangemi has trained generations of surgical residents in robotic surgery and has been actively collaborating as senior member with the ACS Curriculum Committee to standardize robotic training. In recognition of his experience and expertise, Dr. Gangemi has been granted the status of Executive Member of the Clinical Robotic Surgery Association. A tireless and dedicated teacher, Dr. Gangemi has been a mentor to many medical students. In the USA, he has pioneered the introduction of a novel program created at University of Toronto in 2012 which provides medical students with comprehensive and multifaceted exposure to surgical specialties to encourage skill development and career inspiration. He was awarded the Golden Scalpel nomination and the Chief Residents Teaching Award in recognition of his excellence in surgical education and has served as Associate Program Director of the general surgery residency program from 2020 to 2022. Dr. Gangemi held the position of Tenured Associate Professor of Surgery at UIC until October 2022 and was then recruited by University of Bologna thank to a program sponsored by the Ministry of University and Scientific Research (MUR) aiming to bring back to Italy professionals of exceptional abilities. He has been chairing the Innovative Surgical and Intervention Techniques and has been serving as robotic surgery program coordinator at the same institution since then. Dr. Gangemi has contributed as first, co-, or senior author to over one hundred scientific peer-reviewed articles and short communications and several book chapters and has been serving as peer reviewer for several editorial boards of prestigious surgical journals. Dr. Gangemi has also held the roles of PI and Co-PI in multiple studies, some of them sponsored by the NIH. Dr. Gangemi is a proud graduate of the Leadership Development Program of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and has held various administrative leadership positions, including Vice Chair of Surgery, Associate Program Director for the General Surgery Residency program, Chief Medical Information Officer, and Champion for the Surgery Department. Dr. Gangemi is also a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery and is active within numerous other national and international societies.
