Rate My Professor Rachel Issaka

Dr. Rachel Issaka, MD, MAS, is an Associate Professor in the Public Health Sciences Division and in Gastroenterology and Hepatology within the Clinical Research Division at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. She holds a joint appointment as Associate Professor in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Gastroenterology, at the University of Washington School of Medicine. As the inaugural Kathryn Surace-Smith Endowed Chair in Health Equity Research, awarded in 2022, and Director of the Population Health Colorectal Cancer Screening Program at Fred Hutch and UW Medicine, Dr. Issaka specializes in Health Science, focusing on optimizing interventions to decrease colorectal cancer mortality, particularly through improving screening and follow-up in medically underserved populations to achieve health equity. Her research employs colorectal cancer screening as a model for precision population health, addressing racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities observed in her early clinical experiences at Northwestern University’s McGaw Medical Center and a Chicago South Side federally qualified health center.

Dr. Issaka earned a BS in Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 2005, an MD from the University of Michigan in 2010, completed her Internal Medicine residency at McGaw Medical Center of Northwestern University in 2013 where she served as Chief Resident, and finished her Gastroenterology and Hepatology fellowship and MAS in Clinical Research at the University of California, San Francisco in 2017. Board-certified in Gastroenterology and Internal Medicine, her work has received funding from the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. She has contributed to national guidelines for the Centers for Disease Control, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable, and served on a 2020 expert panel advising the President’s Cancer Panel and COVID-19 Prevention Network. Key publications include "A Cell-free DNA Blood-Based Test for Colorectal Cancer Screening" (New England Journal of Medicine, 2024), "AGA Clinical Practice Update on Risk Stratification for Colorectal Cancer Screening and Post-Polypectomy Surveillance: Expert Review" (Gastroenterology, 2023), "Association Between Adenoma Detection Rate and Prevalent Colorectal Cancer Detection Rate in a National Colonoscopy Registry" (Gastroenterology, 2025), and "Modeled Cost-Effectiveness of a Rideshare Program to Facilitate Colonoscopy Completion" (JAMA Network Open, 2025). With 66 publications indexed on PubMed, her efforts advance equitable colorectal cancer prevention nationwide.