Susan Runyan receives UCSF FCM Excellence Student Teaching Award!

Susan Runyan, MD, MPH have been selected by medical students to receive a UCSF FCM Excellence Student Teaching Award. This award recognizes Dr. Runyan's unwavering passion for teaching, outstanding commitment to student education, and her strong positive impact as a role model.  (The student recently submitted this regarding their experience with her at One Medical last year).

Students who nominated Dr. Runyan explained why her teaching had made a difference in their education:  

"Dr. Runyan was my FCM preceptor during my third-year clinical rotations, and I would like to nominate her for the FCM teaching award. As an educator, she was extremely invested in teaching and my learning. I especially admired her ability not only to clearly explain different clinical concepts but also have the openness and curiosity to learn from even us trainees. For instance, she asked me to do short presentations on topics that interested me as a way for both of us to learn and grow and gave me opportunities to teach patients what we learned together. She was always sharing resources with me on how to be a better patient advocate and gifted me a book on Motivational Interviewing when I showed interest in this area. She was also very generous with her time and would set aside time to debrief after each session and asked for ways for my experience to be better.

What I found most inspiring about Dr. Runyan was her relationship with her patients. She had such deep, longitudinal, and personal relationships with every single patient and would share with me many stories about what kinds of adversities she and her patient overcame together, ranging from a spouse’s death to overcoming COVID-19 to battling cancer. Many patients came from other areas of the city just to see Dr. Runyan and were really heart broken when she left the One Medical practice. Her genuine kindness, curiosity, and empathy for her patients was very apparent during every interaction, and she had a beautiful balance between getting to know the patient while also providing medical care. She was one of my favorite, and most inspirational clinicians I encountered during my third-year rotation and continues to be a role model and mentor for me as I go through my training."