Matt Rustici, MD
Recent Graduate Achievement Award 2021
Dr. Matt Rustici received his BS from the University of California San Diego in 2004. During his undergraduate degree he realized he was most passionate about teaching. From there, it was only a matter of determining where he could fulfill that interest. He settled on medicine, with the goal always being educating, not only in the formal sense but also the kind of educating that is done peer-to-peer, or in the patient-doctor relationship on both sides. He returned to his home state of Colorado and entered the University of Colorado for medical school, graduating in 2008. He completed his residency in the Children's Hospital Colorado Pediatric Program, in 2011.
His desire to collaborate fit perfectly with pediatrics, where he could work together with caregivers about their children’s health for best outcomes. Dr. Rustici became a faculty member at the University of Colorado in 2011 and was promoted to associate professor in 2020, also working clinically at Denver Health in their Pediatric Emergency Department and Urgent Care (PEDUC).
Dr. Rustici began his academic career as the director for the Problem-Based Learning course at CU. There, he sought to foster student curiosity to think holistically about real world scenarios through simulated patient cases, which challenged students to go beyond merely coming to the correct diagnosis and instead to see how illness and treatment is affected by social determinants of health. Empowering students to innovate in their community, he also collaborated with medical student leaders in the founding of the CU Medical Alumni Association and Medical Student Council Innovations Fund which includes a competitive small grants program, leadership training and grant-writing mentorship for students leading initiatives to address health disparities in local communities. He is also co-director of the Transition To Residency (TTR) course at the University, which seeks to ensure that all graduates are ready to provide excellent care to patients on day one of internship. His passion for TTR courses has led him to chair a national TTR course symposium, create a national educational grand rounds series and lead a national study to define the goals and objectives of TTR courses. In 2021, he was named a Macy Faculty Scholar where he will spend two years creating a collaborative open-access compendium of TTR course materials that will improve education for graduating students throughout North America.