This interview is one in a series of interviews with the 2026 recipients of the ACGME Awards. These awardees join an outstanding group of previous honorees whose work and contributions to graduate medical education (GME) represent the best in the field. They will be honored at the 2026 ACGME Annual Educational Conference, taking place February 19-21, 2026, in San Diego, California.
2026 Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Awardee Suzanne Karan, MD, FASA is the Vice Chair for Education and program director of the anesthesiology residency at the University of Rochester.
ACGME: How did you become involved in medicine, and in academic medicine specifically?
Dr. Karan: Medicine felt like a natural place where science, humanity, and systems intersect. My path into academic medicine, though, was shaped very directly by a mentor who embodied what it meant to teach, question, and elevate others. I remember thinking that if I could grow up and do what he does, that would be a life well spent. For years, I expected to follow his research trajectory. I pursued it seriously, and when I didn’t get funded, it was a hard but defining moment. What looked like a setback ultimately opened another path. Program leadership — often joked about as a way to “get office time” — became, for me, a doorway into a different kind of scholarly life: one centered on innovation, systems thinking, and the formation of physicians. What felt like a detour turned out to be the place where my skills, values, and curiosity aligned. That is how I found academic medicine — and why I’ve stayed.
ACGME: What does this award mean to you?
Karan: To be recognized nationally feels less like a personal accolade and more like validation that the ideas matter, that residents deserve thoughtful, modern training environments, and that education can be a site of creativity, scholarship, and system redesign. It honors the residents and faculty members who took risks with me, trusted new approaches, and helped shape what our program has become.
ACGME: What do you feel is the most important job the program director has?
Karan: A program director’s most important responsibility is not just to manage a curriculum, but to steward identity formation and help residents become the kind of physicians our patients deserve.
ACGME: What is the most rewarding part of your job?
Karan: Watching residents grow into themselves — gaining confidence, finding their voice, discovering their interests, and becoming colleagues you’re proud to work beside. Equally rewarding is seeing an idea move from conversation to prototype to reality. Whether it’s a new rotation, a QI [quality improvement] pathway, an assessment tool, or a scholarly project, I love watching innovation in education ripple outward and improve the clinical environment for everyone.
ACGME: What is the most challenging?
Karan: The hardest part is balancing the reality that residents are still learning while also doing a genuinely high-stakes job. For many of them, this is their first real job, and they’re doing it while mastering complex skills, managing stress, and figuring out who they are as physicians. Holding that tension every day is not simple. The other challenge is more personal. Being the “program mom” to dozens of residents each year draws on the same instincts I use at home — supporting, worrying, coaching, setting expectations — but the time pressure is intense. I’ve always felt that push and pull between giving my residents what they need and saving enough of myself for my family. It’s meaningful work, but it’s a lot to carry at once.
ACGME: What advice do you have for residents or fellows who may be interested in pursuing a career in academic medicine?
Karan: Stay curious. Academic medicine rewards people who ask good questions, who reflect, who challenge assumptions, and who are willing to look at a system and imagine how it could be better. Find mentors who not only support your ambitions but stretch them. Say yes to projects that teach you how institutions work. Learn to think in frameworks — clinical, educational, and ethical. And remember that academic medicine isn’t a job title; it’s a mindset. It’s the choice to engage thoughtfully with your profession, to contribute to something larger than yourself, and to help shape the next generation.
ACGME: Do you have anything else you would like to share?
Karan: None of this is work a program director does alone. The real anchors of any successful program are the coordinators, associate program directors, and the DIO [designated institutional official]. Coordinators especially carry an enormous amount of emotional and operational weight — they are often the first call, the steady voice, the memory bank, and the glue that holds everything together. And a strong DIO makes it possible for a program director to innovate, advocate, and take care of residents in a meaningful way. I’ve been incredibly fortunate in those partnerships, and any success attributed to me is really shared with them.
I’ve been a program director for a long time — long enough to see the ACGME evolve, streamline reporting, and begin to align educational expectations with what truly matters for patient care. The administrative burden is still real, but the structure is clearer, and the purpose behind it is stronger. Sticking with this work for so many years has given me a unique vantage point. I’ve watched how changes in GME — from competency-based training to Milestones, to QI/safety/teaming initiatives — ripple outward into clinical care. Academic medical centers respond to what residents are asked to learn and report on; you can literally see training priorities shaping patient outcomes and system redesign. It has been incredibly energizing to witness that arc from inside the role.
Learn more about the ACGME’s Parker J. Palmer Courage to Teach Award here. Register for #ACGME2026 on our conference website, where we will continue to celebrate this year’s honorees.