Dr. J. Joshua Smith, M.D., Ph.D., F.A.C.S.

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Get to know Surgical Oncologist Dr. J. Joshua Smith, who serves patients in New York, New York.

Dr. Smith is an experienced colorectal surgical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, New York. His clinical expertise is in the areas of rectal cancer, colon cancer, anal cancer, minimally invasive surgical approaches, colorectal liver metastases, rectal cancer clinical trials, and preservation of bowel, bladder and sexual function.

As a surgeon on the Colorectal Surgery Service, he cares for people with rectal, colon, and anal cancers. Patient care in his practice revolves around selecting treatment options that will optimize patient outcomes, enhance quality of life, and adhere to a patient-centered approach. He conducts research on these diseases and has special training in surgical oncology with special emphasis in colorectal surgery. 

Academically, Dr. Smith received his medical degree from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston and his Doctorate degree in Cell and Developmental Biology from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he also completed his residency. In 2013, he joined Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as a fellow in complex surgical oncology. He served as Chief Administrative Fellow for the Department of Surgery from 2014 to 2015. 

“At MSK, I have been a co-leader on the topic of watch-and-wait after clinical complete response to neoadjuvant therapy for rectal cancer patients on our Colorectal Disease Management Team. I am actively working to improve our understanding of this management strategy for rectal cancer patients on and off trial. Currently, I am a co-investigator on Dr. Paul Rommesser’s novel trial in rectal cancer patients. Additionally, I serve on the Rectal-Anal Task Force of the National Cancer Institute’s Gastrointestinal Steering Committee as an investigator and serve on the Alliance for Clinical Trials GI Surgery Working Group” expressed the doctor. 

While he focuses on caring for people with rectal and colon cancer, he also researches how to improve responses to standard treatments for these diseases. He spends significant time doing basic and translational research in the laboratory. His focus there is to develop better models to study rectal cancer and to uncover targeted treatments for people with rectal and colon cancer who do not respond to standard treatments. This type of research requires that he investigates the basic mechanisms and predictive markers that can be assessed in the tumors of patients with colorectal cancer. His group established the first working model of rectal cancer using patient-derived organoid technology.

In the past five years, Dr. Smith has been heavily involved with Dr. Garcia-Aguilar in administration of his National Institutes of Health funded trial, Organ Preservation in Rectal Adenocarcinoma, for which he served as an active site co-leader. Together, they are looking into the molecular mechanisms of poor response to standard neoadjuvant chemoradiation in locally advanced rectal cancer. Furthermore, they have proposed a novel method of assessing response, and are examining this in a prospective manner to find a more precise and individualized approach to caring for people with rectal cancer. 

In addition to being a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS), he is a member of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Surgeons, Association for Academic Surgery, the Society of Surgical Oncology, the American Association of Cancer Research, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Furthermore, Dr. Smith is board-certified through the American Board of Surgery (ABS). The ABS is an independent, non-profit organization located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, founded for the purpose of certifying surgeons who have met a defined standard of education, training, and knowledge.

Surgical oncology is the branch of surgery applied to oncology; it focuses on the surgical management of tumors, especially cancerous tumors. A surgical oncologist removes the tumor and nearby tissue during surgery. He or she also performs certain types of biopsies to help diagnose cancer, and treats cancer in a multidisciplinary manner with radiation oncology, medical oncology, radiology and pathology physicians.

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