Lynnea Mills, MD

Associate Professor

Lynnea has been a clinician-educator in the Division of Hospital Medicine since 2014. She works clinically on the General Medicine inpatient services and focuses academically on medical education and communication. She founded and directs the UCSF GME Competency Coaching Program, a referral-based program to support professional skill development for residents and fellows from across departments. She also directs the Clinical Skills Guidance Program, which coaches students working to enhance their clinical skills outside the standard curriculum. Lynnea directs the Acting Internship in Internal Medicine and serves as a career advisor for students applying into Preliminary Medicine positions. In 2025, Lynnea completed her PhD in medical education, focusing on the impacts of emotion on learning, particularly in the context of remediation. She is pursuing a research agenda related to affective neurosciences and their integration into health professions education to improve the learning process for our students and trainees. Lynnea is a member of the UCSF Academy of Medical Educators and is excited to be involved with work surrounding feedback, coaching, and learner/supervisor relationships. She holds the Academy's Chair for Innovation in Teaching, related to her work supporting GME learners in receiving coaching to support professional skill development. She is a faculty member in the international Academy on Communication in Healthcare, and coaches faculty and trainees on communication, in addition to developing curricula on difficult conversations. She frequently serves as an invited speaker for internal and external organizations on topics related to feedback and support for struggling learners, as well as emotions in learning.
Education
PhD, 2025 - Medical Education, Utrecht University
2017 - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Champion Training, University of California
2013 - Internal Medicine, University of Washington
M.D., 2010 - , Columbia University
B.A., 2004 - , Stanford University
Publications
  1. Mills LM, Cate OT, Boscardin C, O'Sullivan PS. Breaking Bad News to Learners: How Well Does the SPIKES Clinical Model Translate? Perspectives on medical education. 2024. PMID: 39735824


  2. Mills LM, Stenfors T, Duffy M, Young JQ, Boscardin C, Ten Cate O, O'Sullivan PS. "When You're in It, It Feels Like It's Everything": Medical Students' Experience of Failure and Remediation in the United States and the Netherlands. Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges. 2024. PMID: 39137260


  3. Mills LM, O'Sullivan PS, Ten Cate O, Boscardin C. Investigating feedback orientation in medical learners. Medical teacher. 2022. PMID: 36306388


  4. Mills LM. Expanding the discourse on emotion in health professions education. Medical education. 2022. PMID: 35156222


  5. Mills LM, Boscardin C, Joyce EA, Ten Cate O, O'Sullivan PS. Emotion in remediation: A scoping review of the medical education literature. Medical education. 2021. PMID: 34355413


  6. Frank AK, O'Sullivan P, Mills LM, Muller-Juge V, Hauer KE. Clerkship Grading Committees: the Impact of Group Decision-Making for Clerkship Grading. Journal of general internal medicine. 2019. PMID: 30993615


  7. Rosenberg LB, Greenwald J, Caponi B, Doshi A, Epstein H, Frank J, Lindenberger E, Marzano N, Mills LM, Razzak R, Risser J, Anderson WG. Confidence with and Barriers to Serious Illness Communication: A National Survey of Hospitalists. Journal of palliative medicine. 2017. PMID: 28375816


  8. Fortin A, Mills LM. Skill Set 1: The Beginning of the Encounter Chou C and Cooley L, ed. Communication Rx: Transforming Healthcare Through Relationship-Centered Communication.. 2017. PMID:


  9. Staiger TO, Mills LM, Wong BM, Levinson W, Bremner WJ, Schleyer AM. Recognizing Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Activities in Academic Promotion in Departments of Medicine: Innovative Language in Promotion Criteria. The American journal of medicine. 2016. PMID: 26829436


  10. Mills LM, Rhoads C, Curtis JR. Medical Student Training on Code Status Discussions: How Far Have We Come? Journal of palliative medicine. 2015. PMID: 26587872


  11. Mills LM, Rhoads C, Curtis JR. Upgrading the Code Status Discussion: A Curriculum for Medical Trainees Upgrading the Code Status Discussion: A Curriculum for Medical Trainees. 2015. PMID:


  12. Mills L, Berman J, Arora N, Chapman M. Creating a Fun and Innovative New Teaching Tool for Residents Academic Internal Medicine Insight. 2014. PMID: