Although Fisher was born in New York City, she grew up in San Pedro, California, and considers it her hometown. She is a 1967 graduate of San Pedro High School. She went on to receive a bachelor of science in Chemistry in 1971 at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Fisher then stayed on at UCLA and started graduate school in chemistry in the field of x-ray crystallographic studies of metallocarbonanes. The following year she moved to the UCLA medical school and received her doctor of Medicine degree in 1976. She did an internship at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California, in 1977. She chose to specialize in emergency medicine and worked in several hospitals in the Los Angeles area. Fisher later went back to graduate school in chemistry and received a master of scienc