WILMINGTON, Del., Dec. 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Diana Dickson-Witmer, M.D., FACS, has been named medical director of the Christiana Care Breast Center at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center. She takes over for Emily Penman, M.D., who is taking on additional responsibilities at Christiana Care's Department of Surgery. Dr. Dickson-Witmer previously served as the associate medical director of the Breast Center.

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A board-certified surgeon, Dr. Dickson-Witmer recently served as vice chair of the Standards Revision Task Force for the Commission on Cancer of the American College of Surgeons. This task force, with input from 50 national organizations, developed the commission's new standards for cancer centers throughout the country. Dr. Dickson-Witmer is a member of the Education Program Committee of the American Society of Breast Disease. She also is an active member of the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, serving on both the Prevention Committee and the Cancer Care Standards Development Committee.

Dr. Dickson-Witmer has been a member of the surgical teaching staff at Christiana Care Health System since 1983. She also is a clinical assistant professor of surgery at Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

An accomplished lecturer and writer, Dr. Dickson-Witmer serves on the editorial board of Breast Diseases: A Yearbook Quarterly. She is a member of a number of professional organizations and committees and is the immediate past Delaware state chair for the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer. She is serving her second three-year term on the American College of Surgeons' Board of Governors.

Dr. Dickson-Witmer serves on the board of the Delaware Breast Cancer Coalition, a group committed to raising awareness of the importance of early detection and treatment of breast cancer. She was appointed to the Education Committee of the American Society of Breast Surgeons in 2005. She also is a member of the Delaware Cancer Registry Advisory Committee.

Dr. Dickson-Witmer served as a surgeon on three medical missions, one in Zambia in southern Africa and two to Honduras in Central America.  Dr. Dickson-Witmer also helped to set up a triage center at Ground Zero to treat survivors of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City, where she was attending a professional conference.

A 1976 graduate of University of Florida's College of Medicine, Dr. Dickson-Witmer served a residency there, as well as at the then-Medical Center of Delaware (now Christiana Care), where she was chief surgical resident in 1982.

For more information about Christiana Care, visit www.christianacare.org/whoweare.

SOURCE Christiana Care Health System