Dr Van Ummersen received her Medical Degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA. She served her medical internship there as well and completed her medical residency at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. She then worked as a hospital based internist before going onto a Medical Oncology fellowship at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Dr Van Ummersen completed an additional research year studying clinical trial design and drug development. As a part of this she spent two months as a voluntary medical officer at the FDA.