Katie Jane McDougall (née Edwards) was born in Penzance and grew up in Twyford and then Henley on Thames. She was educated at the Abbey School in Reading and graduated from St Mary's Hospital Medical School in 1987. After housework, she trained as a general practitioner in London. In 1991, she was posted to Nkhotakota, Malawi with the VSO charity as a district health officer, where she managed a district of over 200,000 people, a local hospital and nine health centres. In this role, she supported local health workers, provided education, training and care for complex cases. During the posting she met Colin McDougall, a fellow GP who replaced her in Nkhotakota in 1993. Katie stayed in Malawi and moved to Salima to work on a World Health Organization project providing clean water for villages. Katie and Colin returned to the UK in 1995, first working in Inverness before settling down.