DeVita joined the
National Cancer Institute (NCI) in 1963 as a clinical fellow, working with
Emil "Tom" Frei,
Emil J. Freireich and others. He returned as a senior investigator in 1966 after completing his training at Yale-New Haven Medical Center in 1965. At NCI, DeVita held the following posts: Senior Investigator in the Solid Tumor Service, Head of the Solid Tumor Service, Chief of the Medicine Branch, Director of the Division of Cancer Treatment and Clinical Director of NCI (as of 1975). In addition, in collaboration with
George Canellos, DeVita developed the combination chemotherapy
CMF, which still remains a useful therapy for
breast cancer. From 1977 to 1978, DeVita was the president of the
American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). In 1980, DeVita was appointed Director of the NCI and the National Cancer Program by President
Jimmy Carter, a position he held until 1988. In 1993 he returned to Yale, where he became Director of
Yale Cancer Center, serving from 1993 to 2003. In 2004, he was named as the Amy and
Joseph Perella Professor of Medicine at Yale University, a position to be renamed the Vincent T. DeVita Professor of Medicine after his tenure. He is currently the chair of the Yale Cancer Center advisory board and is professor of
internal medicine and of
epidemiology and
public health at
Yale's medical school. From 2012-2013, DeVita served as president of the board of directors of the
American Cancer Society. which was based on the
Pulitzer Prize-winning
book by
Siddhartha Mukherjee. == Personal life ==