- Associate Professor (with tenure) of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Michigan, USA
- Director, University of Michigan Endometriosis and Chronic Pelvic Pain Programme, USA
- Director, University of Michigan Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery and Fellowship, USA
Dr Sawsan As-Sanie is an associate professor at The University of Michigan, where she is a director of the Minimally Invasive Gynecologic Surgery Programme and Fellowship, and the director of the Endometriosis and Chronic Pelvic Pain Programme.
Dr As-Sanie received her medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1998 and completed her residency in obstetrics and gynaecology at MetroHealth Medical Center and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in 2002. Following residency, she completed a three year clinical and research fellowship in Advanced Laparoscopy and Chronic Pelvic Pain at the University of North Carolina. During this time, she also received her MPH in epidemiology from The UNC School of Public Health.
Dr As-Sanie is committed to promoting improvements in the healthcare of women with chronic pelvic pain and endometriosis by pursuing clinical and translational research in the epidemiology, physiology, and treatment of endometriosis and other pelvic pain disorders.
She is an NIH-funded clinician scientist and has published and lectured widely on the mechanisms involved in the initiation and maintenance of chronic pelvic pain and post-surgical pain, with a focus on endometriosis-associated pelvic pain.
Through collaborations with Dr Daniel Clauw and the University of Michigan Chronic Pain and Fatigue Research Center, her team has published many of the first studies to demonstrate the role of central nervous system sensitisation in the initiation and maintenance of chronic pain in women with endometriosis-associated chronic pelvic pain, which is independent of the presence and severity of endometriosis.
These studies have shifted the paradigm in the care of women with chronic pelvic pain and have been sited extensively to explain why the degree of endometriosis does not correlate with the severity of pain symptoms. She is the principal investigator of an NIH-funded prospective observational study to identify peripheral and central nervous system factors, which may predict persistent chronic pelvic pain following hysterectomy, including the influence of chronic overlapping pain conditions on endometriosis and hysterectomy outcomes.
She is the past-president of the International Pelvic Pain Society (IPPS) and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Minimally Invasive Gynecology. She was recently appointed to the Society of Women’s Health Research Interdisciplinary Network on Female Pelvic Health, and has worked on multiple additional national and international committees dedicated to advancing the access, knowledge, and high-value care of women with endometriosis and chronic pelvic pain.
Dr As-Sanie was the recipient of the 2011 Rodolphe Maheux Award for presenting the best clinical abstract at the 11th World Congress on Endometriosis.
Sawsan As-Sanie was appointed a WES Ambassador in August 2019.