Susan Culican, M.D., Ph.D.

Title at Beginning of Fellowship:

Senior Associate Dean of Graduate Medical Education and and Professor of Opthalmology

Organization at Beginning of Fellowship:

University of Minnesota Medical School

State at beginning of Fellowship:

Minnesota

At time of Fellowship

Susan Culican is Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Neurosciences, Senior Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education and Designated Institutional Official at the University of Minnesota Medical School, where she oversees graduate medical education for more than 150 residency and fellowship programs training over 1,000 physicians each year. A pediatric ophthalmologist, educator, and national leader in graduate medical education, her work focuses on health workforce expansion, healthcare access, and modernizing graduate medical education. Her policy interests would promote physician training, healthcare financing, and workforce planning to evolve together to meet the healthcare needs of the 21st century.

Dr. Culican’s work is dedicated to maintaining the highest standards of educational quality and strengthening the physician workforce through innovative approaches to graduate medical education. Her scholarship focuses on competency-based education and assessment. Her statewide and national leadership focuses on developing new training pathways to address physician shortages. These efforts have shaped her interest in how federal and state policies intended to support workforce development can unintentionally impede it, underscoring the need for policies that better align graduate medical education financing, accreditation, regulatory requirements, and workforce needs.

Dr. Culican earned her MD and a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She completed her ophthalmology residency at Washington University/Barnes-Jewish Hospital and fellowship training in Pediatric Ophthalmology and Strabismus at Washington University/St. Louis Children’s Hospital. She served for fifteen years as Residency Program Director at Washington University, where she received the American Academy of Ophthalmology/AUPO Straatsma Award for excellence in residency education. She serves on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) Ophthalmology Review Committee and the Child Neurology Requirements Writing Group, contributing to national standards and policy for residency education.