after which he completed medical school at the University of Chicago. He trained in general
surgery at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and also completed a fellowship in Surgical
Nutrition at Harvard. He first encountered the cleft-lift approach for pilonidal disease during his
colon and rectal surgery fellowship at the University of Minnesota, and deepened this
understanding of the technique with John and Tom Bascom in 2001. Since then, they have
partnered to further evolve the technique. Dr. Sternberg now specializes in patients with
challenging recurrences, treating over 1500 individuals and has a less than 1% recurrence rate
and has been able to fix those who have recurred. Patients now travel from all over the United
States, Canada, and elsewhere to San Francisco with challenging pilonidal problems for his care.
Since completing his colon and rectal surgery fellowship in 2000, Dr. Sternberg has practiced
general and colon and rectal surgery in San Francisco at California Pacific Medical Center where
he has served as a Surgical Director of the IBD Center and on the hospital medical executive
committee.