Suzanne Fletcher

Dr. Suzanne Fletcher is an internist and clinical epidemiologist. She has been a leader in breast cancer screening and prevention research for over three decades. She has served as a member of the Canadian Task Force on the Periodic Health Examination, and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, and as Chair of the NCI International Workshop on Breast Cancer Screening. Dr. Fletcher also served on the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Advisors (1996-2002). She has published over 100 papers and has written numerous chapters in the area of breast cancer screening and prevention. She is co-author, with her husband and son, of the textbook, Clinical Epidemiology - the Essentials.

Dr. Fletcher received her medical degree from Harvard Medical School and was trained in Internal Medicine at Stanford University and Johns Hopkins. She received a Master of Science from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Dr. Fletcher was faculty at McGill Medical School and the University of North Carolina where she was co-chief of the Division of General Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology and led the cancer prevention program at the Lineberger Cancer Research Center. From 1990 to 1993, she served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Annals of Internal Medicine. In 1994, Dr. Fletcher returned to Harvard Medical School as Professor of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (now Population Medicine) where she was a member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center and a founding member of the NCI-funded HMO Cancer Research Network. She directed the Patient-Doctor II physical diagnosis course for second year students and introduced the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) assessment to Harvard Medical School. She also directed the largest U.S. primary care educational program for primary care clinicians as part of Harvard Medical School's participation in PRI-MED. She serves as co-editor of primary care for the electronic text, UpToDate.

Dr. Fletcher was President of the Society of General Internal Medicine (1983-1984), as well as the founding Co-Editor of the Journal of General Internal Medicine (1984-1989). She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, serving on its Council and Executive Committee (1993-1995). She was a member of the American Board of Internal Medicine (1981-1987). She was the founding Secretary General of the Canadian/US branch of the International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN). In 2007 she chaired the Macy Conference on Continuing Education in the Health Professions. She and Dr. Robert Fletcher initiated and directed the CRN Scholars Program (2007-2012), an investigator development program for junior investigators in the Cancer Research Network.