Anisha Patel

Dr Anisha Patel MBChB, MRCP, DFSRH, DRCOG, MRCGP undertook her medical training at the University of Birmingham and is now a general practitioner, specialising in Women's health and Respiratory medicine in West Sussex. She is married to a Consultant Gastroenterologist, who is also a bowel cancer screening endoscopist, and has 2 children, aged 10 and 11. Anisha received the bombshell diagnosis of bowel cancer at the age of 39 and started writing her way through treatment and beyond. Her energy since diagnosis has been focused on raising awareness of bowel cancer, initially through her popular Instagram platform, @doctorsgetcancertoo. Today, she is a speaker and health educator, working as an on-screen media doctor across a variety of media outlets to highlight a broad range of health agendas. Anisha appears regularly on ITV’s Lorraine, as well as on BBC and ITV news and Talk TV, and in podcasts, magazines and print media, breaking health taboos and talking all things health and women’s health, with a particular focus on cancers. She has featured on the 'No Butts’, campaign, founded by the team from television’s Lorraine, and the late Dame Deborah James, whose aim is to dispel the stigmas surrounding Bowel Cancer. Anisha has taken part in a variety of health and cancer-related campaigns, including for the NHS, and for charities (including Bowel Cancer UK, and Cancer Research UK), working alongside them and offering a unique perspective as both patient and doctor. She is a Trustee of Teens Unite (a Teenage cancer charity) and a Patron of the Fountain Centre, Guildford, two cancer charities supporting patients from diagnosis, through treatment, and beyond. Anisha is passionate about, and has significant experience of, talking about survivorship, life after cancer and the impact on mental health. She devotes much of her spare time to helping others navigate this most difficult, and often unspoken about, phase of life, including how to return to work, and finding a ‘new normal’. She also loves the great outdoors, exercise and running as well as food in equal measure! “Everything you’d hoped you’d never need to know about a Bowel Cancer” is her debut book.