The UBC Department of Family Practice is pleased to welcome Drs. Cecilia Jevitt and Wendy V. Norman as Interim Co-Heads, effective 2 September 2025 to 1 September 2026. We are grateful for their joint leadership while Dr. Robert Petrella, current Department Head, will be away on administrative leave during this time.
“Not only are Cele and Wendy both leading scholars in their respective fields, they are also personal and professional mentors for many of us in this Department,” says Dr. Petrella. “I cannot imagine two better candidates to helm the department in my absence. We are very fortunate and grateful to have their leadership.”
About the Interim Co-Heads
Dr. Cecilia Jevitt, PhD, CNM, APRN, FACNM, RM (non-practicing), is professor and Interim Program Director of Midwifery at the UBC Department of Family Practice. From 2013 to 2018, she directed the Yale School of Nursing’s Midwifery and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner master’s degree programs. She was the UBC Midwifery Program Director from 2018 to 2023 and reprised her role in 2024. She has done capacity-building teaching and curriculum consultations in Switzerland, Laos, China and Ghana.
Dr. Jevitt studied midwifery at Emory University. Her doctorate in applied medical anthropology is from the University of South Florida. She established USF’s first midwifery practice in 1984 and founded an academic division of midwifery in 2011 with the USF College of Medicine while jointly appointed to the Colleges of Nursing and Public Health.
Dr. Jevitt is an elected Fellow of the American College of Nurse-Midwives. She served on both the ACNM and FACNM Boards of Directors. Jevitt was a Florida Nurses Association Great 100 Nurse in 2009, the 2010 Reviewer of the Year for the Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, the University of South Florida Department of Anthropology’s Distinguished Alumni in 2012, and a 2014 Connecticut Nightingale Excellence in Nursing Award winner.
Dr. Wendy V. Norman, MD, CCFP, FCFP, DTM&H, MHSc, is a Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Family Planning Innovation in the Department of Family Practice, and an Associate Member in both the School of Population and Public Health, and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at the UBC Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Norman’s research has informed dozens of provincial and federal contraception and abortion policies in Canada and around the globe.
Dr. Norman graduated in medicine from Queen’s University in Kingston in 1985. She undertook family medicine residency at the University of Alberta (1987), and a general practice anesthesiology residency at UBC (1988). She practiced for a decade as a full-service general practitioner in Sechelt, BC. In 1997 she moved to Vancouver to provide focused care in family planning at BC Women’s Hospital, the Kelowna General Hospital and various community-based clinics. Dr Norman joined our UBC Department of Family Practice as clinical faculty member in 1999 and transitioned to academic faculty in 2012. From 2010 to 2012 she co-directed Women’s Health training within the Enhanced Skills program, and from 2013 to 2023 directed its Clinician Scholar program. Dr. Norman represents the Faculty of Medicine on the UBC Vancouver Senate and chairs the Senate Research & Scholarship Committee. She is a former chair of the Section of Researchers of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. She has been recognized as a Woman of Impact by the Government of Canada (2021) and was awarded the King Charles III Coronation Medal for service to Canada in 2025.
Dr. Norman co-founded and leads the Contraception and Abortion Research Team, and is a technical advisor to the World Health Organization on Sexual Health Survey Data.