Dr Savannah Santiago
Episode 320
17 MAR 2025
She ran for the University of Colorado | Colorado Springs, competing in cross country, indoor track, and outdoor track. Prior to that she was a school record holder in the 4x400m relay and earned several honors, including – among many others – being named Poway High School Athlete of the Year, and was a five-time state meet qualifier. Today, she still stays involved through a running club, continues to race on the roads, and, most recently, ran a full marathon for the charity organization St. Jude. Her story, however, includes medical challenges, and, in part, led to her today being a foot and ankle doctor and surgeon at a Catholic hospital in Indianapolis, including treating athletes.
Notable guest quotes:
“Catholicism is something that is really important, especially to the Hispanic side of my family. Growing up, I very distinctly remember my great-grandmother, my grandma… praying with her rosary every single night.”
“My dad had told me so many different stories about the priest from Our Lady of Guadalupe – which was our church in San Diego – coming over to the house for Sunday dinners and Father Brown and all of that.”
“The most important thing was that we understood the role of God in our life and the role of Jesus’s sacrifice.”
“I played tennis and swam and did all those other things. But running, I would say, is the only sport that I was actually good at.”
“I had made plans to join the Peace Corps. I had signed a contract for two years in Costa Rica where I would be studying infectious disease and teaching Spanish… I was going to run my last year of college track and COVID hit, and it just turned the entire world upside down.”
“We have a chapel on-site at our hospital … We also have numerous chaplains who are available to talk to patients. I actually had a patient tell me the other day that he called a priest to come bedside.”
“I’ll go up to the chapel and I’ll talk to one of the priests there or I’ll just light a candle and say a quick prayer for the patient and their family.”
“I was able to help with building homes. I actually did all of those mission trips with my mom and so it was really cool because we were part of a women build crew. So, it was a full women team who were building homes for these families down in Mexico.”
“I think athletes tend to push themselves really really hard and I love the discipline that running has given me and I love the community that I’m a part of, but I do think that there has to be a stopping part and we have bodies that can fail on us and just because your body is breaking down doesn’t mean that the rest of you has to break down too.”
“I just feel like I have such a bigger purpose and all of those things truly did happen to me for a reason and while it didn’t feel like it in the time, I am just so lucky that I went through those experiences and got to the other side and I just can absolutely see how God’s work really played out.”
