About
Dr. Wendi LeBrett is a gastroenterologist working to make reliable medical information as easy to find as misinformation.
At a glance
- Board certification
- GastroenterologyInternal medicine
- Training
- Gastroenterology fellowship, UCLAInternal medicine residency, UCLAMD, UC San Diego School of MedicineBA with Honors in Economics, Stanford
- Published in
- GastroenterologyThe American Journal of GastroenterologyClinical Gastroenterology and HepatologyThe Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology
- Speaking
- Opening plenary, UEG Week 2025, Berlin
- Recognition
- Social Media Influencer of the YearHealio Disruptive Innovators Awards, 2023
- Founder
- ModernGut
- Advisory
- Scientific Advisory Board, LOAM ScienceFounding partner and medical advisor, Norms
- Online
- @socalgastrodoc on Instagram and TikTok
Medicine
Dr. LeBrett came to medicine by way of economics. She graduated from Stanford with honors in economics and spent five years as an economic consultant before earning her medical degree at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine.
She completed her residency in internal medicine and her fellowship in gastroenterology at UCLA, and is board-certified in both. She is a member of the American College of Gastroenterology, the American Gastroenterological Association, and the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy.
Research
Her research asks how gastroenterologists treat pain. Working with Dr. Lin Chang at UCLA, she used national prescribing data to measure how often opioids are prescribed for digestive disease, and by whom, in studies published in The American Journal of Gastroenterology and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
She has also written on medications for IBS and other gut-brain disorders and, in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology, on nutrition for gastroparesis.
Public education
“Being on social media has made me a much better physician. It connects me to what patients are thinking or worried about.”
Dr. LeBrett started posting as @socalgastrodoc in 2022, during her fellowship, and at first kept it from her colleagues. Today more than 400,000 people follow her on Instagram and TikTok for plain explanations of gut science: what the evidence says, what it does not, and when a symptom deserves a doctor's attention.
In 2023 Healio named her Social Media Influencer of the Year at the American College of Gastroenterology's annual meeting. In 2025 she gave the opening plenary at UEG Week in Berlin, Europe's largest gastroenterology meeting, on how to fight fake news in medicine. Her advice has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, Scientific American, and Business Insider.
ModernGut
She founded ModernGut, an education platform for people living with digestive conditions. Its first course, on IBS, is for patients and for the clinicians who treat them. She teaches it alongside gastroenterologists, a GI psychologist, and a dietitian from Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, and Washington University in St. Louis, among them Dr. Lin Chang, her research mentor at UCLA.
In her words, it was built “for every GI patient that has felt disregarded, overlooked or rushed.”
What’s next
Dr. LeBrett plans to open a direct care gastroenterology practice in 2027. It is not yet accepting patients. Join the waitlist to hear first when it opens.