Ian Bowmer is Emeritus Professor of Medicine (infectious diseases) at Memorial University of Newfoundland and was Dean of the Faculty until December 2003. He was President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons from 2019 to 2021. From 2006 to 2019, he was CEO and Registrar of the Medical Council of Canada.
Dr Bowmer joined the Memorial faculty in 1975 and practiced infectious disease and HIV care in the Health Care Corporation of St. John’s for 45 years. He was President of the Medical Council of Canada in 1991 and a member of the Council of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada from 1993 to 2003 and chair of its Accreditation Committee. In 1994 he became the first board chair of the new regionalized - Community Health St. John’s Region. In January of 2004 he was one of 13 nongovernmental appointees to the Health Council of Canada and served as the Health Council's vice chair from 2007 - 2010.
He is a recipient of Canada’s 125th Confederation medal and the Senate of Canada's 150 anniversary medal. In 2003 he was elected to the Royal College of Physicians, London. Dr. Bowmer is an honourary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the American College of Phyisicians. He also received the Medical Council of Canada’s 2004 Louis Lavasseur award for contributions to medical education.
A graduate in medicine from McGill University in 1969, he completed his internal medicine residency and MRC Fellowship in microbiology before moving to Newfoundland and Labrador in 1975.