Biography

Dr. Leon Siegel was born in Berkeley, California, and grew up both in Oakland and Davis, California. He attended Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he majored in Kinesiology and played rugby, graduating Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa. After working as a medical assistant in a urology clinic for a year, he attended medical school at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Siegel next completed a preliminary year at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx. Afterwards, he remained in New York, spending 5 years at Downstate Medical Center and Kings County in Brooklyn. He became deeply invested in the field of Bariatric Surgery, and the effects on a multitude of systems that metabolic surgery and the ensuing weight loss has, which led him to pursue a career in the field. Dr. Siegel applied and matched to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, where he is mastering both laparoscopic and robotic bariatric surgery, as well as benign foregut disease, especially hiatal hernia repair. After fellowship, Dr. Siegel hopes to join an academic medical center where he will have the opportunity to have a busy clinical practice, pursue outcomes-based research, and teach medical students and residents.