Gay Canaris, MD, FACP

Gay Canaris MD, MSPH, FACP is core faculty and Assistant Program Director for Scholarship with the Billings Clinic Internal Medicine Residency, and Clinical Associate Professor with the University of Washington. She is board Certified in Internal Medicine. Dr. Canaris grew up in western Montana, and left to pursue her medical degree at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas Texas. She trained at the University of Minnesota for her Internal Medicine residency, and subsequently completed a clinical research fellowship in Preventive Medicine with an MSPH in Epidemiology/ Statistics at the University of Colorado. She has held faculty positions at Michigan State University, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center before returning home to Montana to “give back”.

At all institutions, Dr. Canaris has divided her time between patient care, teaching, and clinical research. She continues to maintain her own patient panel, achieving Press Ganey scores for patient satisfaction in the 99th percentile while at UNMC. She greatly enjoys learning from her student and resident colleagues, and was honored to receive UNMC’s Top Teacher Awards while there. Through her research activities, she meets the challenge to answer clinical questions that arise in daily practice.

Dr. Canaris has published in many areas including thyroid disease, health promotion particularly among women and Native populations, rural outreach, questionnaire development, clinical prediction rules and outcome measures. Dr. Canaris was selected to serve at our national Institute of Medicine. This IOM Committee of the National Academies was tasked with addressing screening for thyroid disease. Dr. Canaris co-authored the subsequent publication, “Medicare Coverage of Routine Screening for Thyroid Dysfunction.” Her over 20 years of service on the Institutional Review Boards at UNMC and Billings Clinic, also provides a helpful resource to colleagues putting forward projects.

Administratively, Dr. Canaris served in the UNMC Faculty Senate and was elected Faculty Senate President. She is active with the Research Coordination Council at Billings Clinic. She enjoys participation in Ambulatory Morning Report and noon conferences.

Outside of the clinic, she and her family enjoy the outdoors - hunting and fishing and adventuring in Montana and abroad.