Rhonda Levitt, MD ’79 : Paying it forward

She and her husband, Chuck Cowan, MD, who is also retired, host UCSF medical students who are in Seattle for residency interviews. They welcome students into their home and introduce them to Seattle’s vast medical and public health resources.

“We have been impressed with every one of them,” Levitt says. “It’s exciting to see UCSF students who are so bright and excited, so diverse in their backgrounds and interests.”

Science and conscience

Levitt grew up in Southern California with a politically active mother and an aeronautical engineer father. She landed at the ideal place to pursue her interests in science and community organizing – UC Berkeley, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in biochemistry. Before starting medical school, she completed two years of graduate biochemistry studies and worked for Zero Population Growth and the San Francisco Interagency Pregnancy Council.

“I found that I liked clinical work more than abstract research,” she says. “I felt I could make a greater contribution by working directly with patients.”

Medicine and more

Levitt’s medical school class at UCSF was about 30 percent women, a significant increase over previous years. “It was an incredible class,” she says. “We were interested in collegial, cooperative, group learning.”

Once she got to Seattle – for a pediatric residency at Seattle Children’s Hospital – she knew she’d found her permanent home. That meant more than just a place to practice medicine. There, Levitt raised two children, volunteered at the Country Doctor Youth Clinic’s health service for homeless teens, and served on the board of the Northwest Women’s Law Center; now, in retirement, she plans to volunteer both locally and overseas.

“I always felt strongly that I needed to do more than provide medical care,” she says. It’s a message she passed on to the medical students she taught over the years and that she now shares with students from UCSF who visit her home.

“I tell them that medicine is important, but life is more than medicine,” she says. “To be a good doctor, you have to be part of your community.”