Dr. Lisa Fitzpatrick, MD, MPH is a CDC-trained medical epidemiologist and board-certified infectious diseases physician with both domestic and global experience in public health. She was recently named as a member of the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Sciences Roundtable on Health Literacy.
Although Dr. Fitzpatrick’s career has traversed clinical medicine, research and public health program implementation, she is most passionate about improving the nation’s health literacy and demystifying health information. Her goal is to inspire greater and more effective disease prevention and health promotion action in communities by making practical and useable health information more accessible to ordinary citizens.
Dr. Fitzpatrick’s skills and experiences are diverse. She is a medical doctor who began her public health career in 1998 as a medical epidemiologist at the nation’s premier public health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a member of the CDC’s elite Epidemic Intelligence Service. She has served a foreign diplomat in the Caribbean while representing the US government CDC Global AIDS Program under PEPFAR .
Her CDC career traversed many areas in public health including:
1. Leadership and management
2. Epidemiologic and prevention field research
3. Public health program evaluation
4. Strategic planning
5. Community education and engagement
Her decision to leave federal government service was largely based on a personal desire to work in the community to ensure her expertise and professional experiences would directly benefit people. She has worked as a consultant to health departments, US government agencies and community-based organizations and is available for public health consulting.
Dr. Fitzpatrick was born in St. Louis, Missouri. She earned a BA/MD, a six-year accelerated program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, completed infectious diseases fellowship training at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver, Colorado and completed a Master in Public Health from the University of California-Berkeley School of Public Health after which she served as an epidemiologist in the San Francisco Department of Health Office of AIDS. She is a professorial lecturer for the George Washington School of Pubic Health and Health Services and an adjunct faculty member in the Howard University School of Medicine, Department of Community Medicine.
Dr. Fitzpatrick has authored peer-reviewed journal articles, has been interviewed by journalists for the Washington Post, New York Times and PBS and is a guest blogger for Huffington Post. Outside her daily practice, she frequently volunteers time at church and community events to demystify complex health information because she believes informed citizens make healthier citizens.
