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Ronac Mamtani, MD, MSCE, with his wife, Mira Mamtani, MD, MSEd, who is also a physician at
Penn Medicine, and their children, Maya, age 6, and Avi, 2.

A Conversation with

Ronac Mamtani, MD, MSCE

S eptember 11, 2001, changed the else was on the floor. Another intern said,
lives of many people. In Ronac
“We should probably go.” The second plane
Mamtani’s case, it caused an
abrupt career redirection out of flew overhead as we were exiting the building.
finance into medicine. Today Mamtani is an
oncologist at Penn Medicine’s Abramson HNF: Yikes. What was that like?
Cancer Center and one of a growing number Dr. M: I mainly remember fear, panic, and
of physician scientists interested in using dust. And it was exactly this moment that I
technology and big data to improve health realized I wanted to care for people at their
outcomes. This is his story. most vulnerable.

Healthnetwork Foundation (HNF): HNF: Did you ever go back to your internship?
I understand you started out planning on a
career in finance. And then you had a remarkable Dr. M: No. A few weeks after 9/11 my boss
experience that pivoted you into medicine… called me and said how glad he was to hear I
was okay. I told him I wouldn’t be returning to
Dr. Mamtani (Dr. M): I was in my final year finance. From there I applied to medical school
of undergrad at Cornell and had a chance to at Stony Brook, and it was the best decision of
do an internship on Wall Street. I was at Merrill
Lynch in the World Financial Center, right my life. I met my wife and some of my best
across the street from the twin towers. My first friends there. I haven’t looked back.
day on the job was September 10, 2001. I was
completely unaware when the first plane hit. I HNF: Let’s talk more about your work. If I
had been told to sit in my cubical with head- understand correctly, your main interest is in
phones on so I could concentrate on the job I’d data-driven research projects. What is the
been given. At some point I noticed no one significance of that?

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