CAMSS ADVOCACY AWARD
Advocating for Physicians, Caring for Patients
Awardees of the CAMSS Advocacy Award are individuals whose advocacy on behalf of physicians benefits the profession and supports physicians’ efforts to best serve their patients and community.
The recipient of the 2025 award is Dr. Susan Kuhn!
Dr. Kuhn received the award in recognition of her leadership in developing the Professionals Engaging with Purpose Program (PEPP).
Dr. Susan Kuhn is an infectious disease physician at the Alberta Children’s Hospital where she is also the Deputy Head of Professional Affairs in the Department of Pediatrics. Her clinical and academic interests in pediatric infectious disease have focused on travel and tropical medicine along with migrant health, and she has enjoyed being part of a collaborative international community. In recent years she has expanded her research and educational interests to explore the how and why of medicine, encompassing topics in medical humanism, professional fulfillment, and faculty development. Grappling with some of these topics led her to undertake advanced training in facilitation, which she brings to the Professionals Engaging with Purpose (faculty development) Program events in her department, as well as the Mindful Practice in Medicine workshops through the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) Centre for Mindfulness. She enjoys making out-of-the-box ideas a reality, especially when she can work with others to make them even better.
The nomination for Dr. Kuhn included:
“Professionals Engaging with Purpose Program (PEPP) grew out of Dr. Kuhn's evolving interest in promotion of faculty vitality through engagement in meaningful work. This led to a sabbatical from which a theoretical framework was constructed for an approach to faculty development for which meaningful work was a foundation. She formed and led a PEPP Council and Network which conducted a needs assessment in the Department of Pediatrics from which a model was constructed. This model is centred on the individual faculty member to create a specific development plan, regardless of career stage or path that can be supported by local resources and colleagues as well as through identification of and access to additional training opportunities in the larger institution and beyond.”
