William DeMuth

Hello! My name is William De Muth but I go by my middle name, “Dylan”. I was born and raised in Dallas, Texas and received degrees in Economics and Chemistry at Southern Methodist University before completing my medical education at the University of Texas School of Medicine in San Antonio. During my undergraduate time, I met my mentor and life coach through a class titled Global and Public Health, and after the class I continued to learn about making impact in underserved populations through our research together.

Soon after starting medical school, I had the opportunity to apply similar global and public health concepts to the local San Antonio community, and was awarded a distinction in research for the longitudinal impact our team is making on the social determinants of health impacting nutrition in the local Muslim immigrant community.

Between my third and fourth year of medical school, I took a research year to re-join my mentor and help develop, deploy and study the impacts of a virtual-reality based surgical training intervention, which was designed to quicken the learning curve of surgeons training to perform emergency cesarean sections and hysterectomies in cases of postpartum hemorrhage occurring in Sub-Saharan Africa.

I returned to South Texas to complete medical school, and after graduating began the drive up to Alaska. Full of geographical challenges, unique and diverse communities, and opportunities to learn how to heal in a variety of settings, I knew Alaska was the place where I could train to become an impactful family physician. There is plenty of global health work to be done right in our backyards, and there is no backyard bigger than the last frontier!

I spent the winter and spring prior to residency working as a ski instructor in Girdwood, Alaska. Through this I met people from all over Alaska and beyond, and taught skiing for programs such as Wounded Warriors, ski education for PE credits to students throughout Southcentral Alaska, Military Mondays (my favorite!) for our active duty military at JBER, toddlers, grandparents…I am so thankful for this time to make lifelong Alaskan friends who love sliding on the snow.

Outside of medicine, I enjoy doing anything in the backcountry with my dog Usal, playing guitar, skiing and climbing mountains, meditation, riding my bike, and being outside. I am thrilled to be up here continuing to work with communities and help make positive impact in people’s lives.