Areas of Expertise
- Robotic Surgery
- Laparoscopic Surgery
- Prostate Cancer
- Kidney Cancer
- Bladder Cancer
- Testicular Cancer
Roger Satterthwaite, M.D., M.P.H., started his medical career as a 19-year-old medic in the U.S. Army. After stints as a paratrooper and in the mountain infantry, he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in history at Dartmouth College with an emphasis in Latin American studies and lettered on the nationally ranked Dartmouth cross country team. Between 1987 and 1991, Dr. Satterthwaite then completed both a master's degree at the Mailman School of Public Health and his medical degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at top-ranked Columbia University in New York City. He followed with an equally rigorous urology residency at the University of Southern California/Norris Cancer Center, where he published in the transplantation literature.
From 1997 to 2003, Dr. Satterthwaite served in the U.S. Air Force as chief of urology at MacDill Air Force Base (AFB) and Royal Air Force Lakenheath, in addition to directing the Surgical Subspecialty Flight at Travis AFB. After being selected for lieutenant colonel, Dr. Satterthwaite departed the Air Force for two years of private practice in Hawaii. He then joined City of Hope in 2005, first as a fellow in urologic oncology and robotic surgery, followed by a staff appointment in the City of Hope Medical Group. A highly experienced robotic and laparoscopic surgeon who has also performed thousands of endoscopic procedures, Dr. Satterthwaite has grown a community urology practice for City of Hope from virtually zero in 2006 to one that currently performs about 200 robotic surgeries a year and many more general urology procedures out of clinics in South Pasadena, Santa Clarita and Lancaster, Calif.
Dr. Satterthwaite has lived in El Salvador, Costa Rica and England, and travelled extensively through Asia and studied abroad in Austria and Honduras. In addition, he has worked on Air Force bases in Germany and Turkey. He is a member of the American Urology Association and serves his specialty in the American Medical Association House of Delegates, as well as a lobbyist on Capitol Hill. Dr. Satterthwaite proudly supports Doctors Without Borders, Physicians for Human Rights and Amnesty International. He speaks fluent Spanish, high school German and, from 15 years of taekwondo, can count to 20 in Korean.