Dr. Dominitz is the executive director of the US Department of Veterans Affairs National Gastroenterology and Hepatology Program and a professor of medicine in the Gastroenterology Division at the University of Washington. Dr. Dominitz joined the staff of the VA Puget Sound in Seattle in 1997 after completing his residency and gastroenterology fellowship at Duke University, a fellowship in Health Services Research at the Durham VA and a master’s degree in clinical research from the Duke University School of Medicine.
Dr. Dominitz became interested in the role of screening colonoscopy during his gastroenterology fellowship when he worked with Dr. Dawn Provenzale on a study of patient preferences for screening as part of the landmark VA Screening Colonoscopy Study that was led by Dr. David Lieberman. Over the past three decades, he has been fortunate to collaborate on numerous studies of colorectal cancer screening and the quality of colonoscopy. He co-chairs a 17-year randomized, prospective VA Cooperative Study that is comparing colorectal cancer outcomes in more than 50,000 average-risk veterans who were randomized to screening with annual fecal immunochemical tests (FIT) versus screening colonoscopy (CONFIRM Study) – which is designed to assess if colonoscopy is superior to FIT for reducing colorectal cancer mortality and incidence.
Dr. Dominitz has served as the executive director for the US Department of VA’s National Gastroenterology and Hepatology Program since the inception of the office in 2011. His work has focused on ensuring that veterans have access to high quality gastroenterology care. He is particularly interested in colonoscopy quality improvement, and he has led the development of new policies and tools related to this issue – including mandating requirements for colonoscopy quality monitoring. In 2022, Dr. Dominitz established the VA’s National Colorectal Cancer Screening Program and initiated nationwide efforts to employ mailed FIT outreach to expand participation in colorectal cancer screening. He also distributed computer-aided detection (CADe) devices for colonoscopy to 43 randomly selected VA facilities to assess the role of artificial intelligence for the detection of colorectal neoplasia (CADENCE Study), which has led to ongoing deployment of CADe devices for colonoscopy at all VA endoscopy units. Dr. Dominitz co-leads the White House Cancer Moonshot Task Force on Prevention and Screening, where he is exploring the feasibility of a national cancer screening registry.
Dr. Dominitz has been an active and engaged ASGE member since he was a fellow in the mid-1990s, having served on the Standards of Practice Committee, the Research Committee, the Training Committee, the Quality Assurance in Endoscopy Committee, the Scientific Program Committee and the Budget and Finance Committee. He has also served ASGE in other key roles, including as a member of the ASGE/ACG Task Force on Colonoscopy Quality, the GI Quality Improvement Consortium Research Committee, the Workgroup on CT Colonograpy and as co-director of the ASGE Postgraduate Course. He has held several ASGE leadership roles, including serving as the chair of the Standards of Practice and Research committees and as a Governing Board councilor. Dr. Dominitz was the associate editor of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy and the American Journal of Gastroenterology, and he currently serves as a special section editor for Gastroenterology. He enjoys mentoring junior faculty and fellows, and he has authored or co-authored approximately 280 peer-reviewed publications, guidelines and editorials. Dr. Dominitz is most grateful for his wife, Josephine Young, MD, MPH, MBA, and their three daughters and son for their unwavering support and encouragement.