Biography
Dr. DeWitt has held medical education leadership roles in three countries. After an MSc at Trinity College, Cambridge and an MD at Harvard Medical School, she completed her Internal Medicine training and a Certificate in Medical Education at the University of Washington. She is a Professor of Medicine for the Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada). In 2014, she was elected to Mastership in the American College of Physicians, and is currently the ACP BC Governor Elect. As a Regional Associate Dean, she had the overall responsibility for strategic leadership and delivery of education for the MD Undergraduate Program and Postgraduate training in Vancouver and Fraser. As Associate Dean, MD Undergraduate Medical Education, she led UBC’s MD Curriculum Renewal efforts. She has a clinical research focus in diabetes and has published internationally on diabetes including a review of insulin in JAMA, and is widely sought as a speaker on practical diabetes care. Her most recent NHMRC grant with Prof. Paul O'Brien studied the effect of laparoscopic banding on remission of diabetes in collaboration with an Australian Indigenous cohort of patients.
At the Melbourne Medical School she was Associate Dean Rural Health, Foundation Chair of the School of Rural Health/Rural Health Academic Centre, and Clinical Dean, Rural Clinical School. She developed Australia’s first purpose-built interprofessional teaching clinic, which opened in 2010. Her team was awarded both the Melbourne Medical School and the University of Melbourne Program Innovation in Education Awards.
She did innovative work on curriculum, distance education and rural faculty development while at the University of Washington, WWAMI program. Peer-voted one of the “Best Doctors in America”, she received the Alpha Omega Alpha faculty award from the students, and the Inaugural University of Washington Alumnae Early Career Achievement Award.
She is a co-author of the American College of Physicians (ACP) best-selling book “Teaching in Your Office,” has authored and co-edited the ACP Medical Knowledge Self-Assessment Program (MKSAP) in General Internal Medicine, and Chaired a National Board of Medical Educators (NBME) Committee. She has published papers on rural workforce shortages, health disparities, and career choice.
