Director, Esophageal Surgery Program, Associate Professor, Cardiothoracic Surgery Weill Cornell Medical College Associate Attending Thoracic Service, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY
Dr. Daniela Molena is a graduate of the University of Padova Medical School in Italy. She completed residencies in general surgery both at the University of Padova and at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, NY. She completed a gastrointestinal research fellowship at the University of California in San Francisco and cardiothoracic clinical fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Weill Cornell Medical College. She served as Chief of Thoracic Surgery at John Hopkins Bayview Medical Center where she developed a lung cancer multidisciplinary treatment and screening programs. She was recruited back to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 2015 to serve as the Director of the Esophageal Program within the Thoracic Surgery Division. She strives to provide excellent and individualized care to patients, integrating new technology and novel approaches. She is an advocate for the use of minimally invasive techniques (VATS, laparoscopic or robotic) whenever possible to decrease pain and enhance patient’s recovery.
Her research focuses in identifying and measuring quality indicators to improve clinical and functional outcomes after surgery, designing clinical pathways to decrease costs and improve results, and identifying racial and socioeconomic disparities that limit the access to excellent care. She is also interested in developing and studying new technologies and imaging guided approaches to direct surgical resection to be more precise, effective and less invasive.
Dr. Molena has authored over 100 manuscripts and several book chapters. She is Editor of Diseases of the Esophagus and part of the Editorial Board of Annals of Surgery, Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery and others. She is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a member of American Surgical Association, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons, Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons, Society for Surgeons of the Alimentary Tract, American Association for Thoracic Surgery, and International Society for the Diseases of the Esophagus. She holds leadership positions in several of these surgical societies and she is Immediate Past President of the Women in Thoracic Surgery.
