Rebecca Shunk, MD is the Associate Chief of Staff for Education at the SFVAHCS/ Designated Educational Officer ( DEO) and the physician Co-Director of an interprofessional team-based training program called EdPACT at the San Francisco VA Health Care System (SFVAHCS). Rebecca is board certified in Internal Medicine and has been a primary care provider and clinician educator at the SFVAHCS and University of California San Francisco (UCSF) for the past 22 years.

She began her career as an Associate Program Director at Johns Hopkins Bayview then as the Associate Director of the UCSF/San Francisco VA (SFVA) PRIME program for UCSF internal Medicine Residents. Her primary educational focus is EdPACT, now over 10 years old, where she teaches interprofessional learners to deliver team-based patient centered care. The key principle of this curriculum is workplace learning. Her trainees include UCSF internal medicine residents, UCSF nurse practitioner (NP) students, NP Residents and other interprofessional trainees. With a team of interprofessional faculty she has developed, published and won awards for their interprofessional curricula for GME learners on topics such as interprofessional huddling, quality improvement, population health and team-based care. Her curricular focus now is on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, She and her team have created an evolving curriculum to promote gender and racial equity for trainees, staff and veterans.

Her current primary leadership position is the DEO or the Associate Chief of Staff for Education at the SFVA. In this role she leads a team managing VA’s 4th largest educational portfolio including 207 FTE for ACGME learners and 280 UCSF medical students rotating yearly. As the ACOS-Education, she participates in and leads strategic committees at both UCSF and VA locally and nationally. As a member of the national VA Strategic Academic Affiliation committee and the national EARs working group, she advocates for the needs of educational mission at VA. At UCSF she is a member of the Office of GME Leadership Committee, the GME Curriculum Committee, the UCSF GME Executive Oversight Committee and the Curriculum and the Education Policy.

She has received several teaching awards, including the Calvin L. Chou PRIME Teaching Award. In 2014, she was awarded the California Society of General Internal Medicine Leader in GIM Award at the California regional meeting. She is also a member of the Academy of Medical Educators. As the Educational Leader at VA she strives to improve trainee education through creating a diverse, equitable and collaborative learning environment. She does this as a member of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, promotion of DEI initiatives and support of numerous programs such as Gender Equity training workshops for faculty, staff and learners alike.

Dr. Shunk received her medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina. She attended University of Chicago Internal Medicine Residency and transferred to Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center to complete her residency and her Chief Resident year. She is currently a Health Sciences Professor of Clinical Medicine at UCSF.