Lily A. Gutnik, M.D., MPH

Associate Vice Chair, Global Surgery

Biography

Dr. Lily A. Gutnik serves as an Assistant Professor for the UAB Division of Breast and Endocrine Surgery and the Associate Vice Chair for Global Surgery and Assistant Program Director- Global Surgery after joining UAB in 2021.

She served on the Finance and Economics Committee of the Lancet Commission for Global Surgery. Her longstanding research passion has revolved around the impact of breast cancer screening and early detection as well as stigma reduction in low-resource settings.

Gutnik was previously a Fulbright and NIH Fogarty Fellow in Lilongwe, Malawi where she established and evaluated the efficacy of Malawi’s first breast cancer screening initiative by activating laywomen to become trained breast health workers. In addition, she serves as an advisory board member for two international NGOs: (i) Know Your Lemons, which focuses on education and awareness materials. She is a committee member of PreTac—a franchisee of Discovering Hands (A German-based social enterprise, which focuses on training blind women to become clinical breast examiners) in Geneva, Switzerland.

She is currently leading and collaborating on various breast cancer projects and initiatives in Tanzania, Kenya, and Cameroon. She contributed to the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative. She is also a co-supervisor of a Ph.D. student in Moshi, Tanzania whose thesis is on understanding factors contributing to late-stage breast cancer diagnosis. She is in the 2023-2024 cohort of the UICC Young Leaders Program.