webPOISONCONTROL Experts

Toby Litovitz, MD

Dr. Toby Litovitz, medical toxicologist and emergency physician, founded the National Capital Poison Center in 1980 and served as Executive and Medical Director until 2018, then becoming the center’s webPOISONCONTROL Director. She served as Executive Director of the American Association of Poison Control Centers from 1994-2004. She was a tenured Professor of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University through 2018, now a regular professor (faculty since 1979) and a Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at The George Washington University (since 1994).

Dr. Litovitz co-founded the nation’s only poisoning surveillance database (originally called the National Data Collection System, later renamed the Toxic Exposure Surveillance System, and now called the National Poison Data System), and coordinated the compilation, development and analysis of that database for 2 decades (1984-2005). She authored more than 100 publications in clinical toxicology, with a focus on hazard detection, button battery ingestions, and surveillance. She directed the National Button Battery Ingestion Hotline for 36 years, publishing extensively about this hazard, including the landmark analysis of 8,648 battery ingestions published in Pediatrics in 2010, which alerted health professionals to the seriousness of lithium coin cell ingestions.

For the past decade, Dr. Litovitz has devoted her efforts to the automation of poison control assistance, through development of the innovative online webPOISONCONTROL tool and app. webPOISONCONTROL is intended for users who won’t or can’t call poison control, providing a trusted, expert resource for the public seeking do-it-yourself online help with a poison exposure and for specialists in poison information handling calls in poison control centers.

Dr. Litovitz graduated from Oberlin College (1974), Washington University School of Medicine (1976), then trained in Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University before joining Georgetown’s Department of Emergency Medicine faculty.