KIPRIME Podcast

Dr Patricia Tempski is Associate Professor at the University of São Paulo and a senior researcher at the Centre for the Development of Medical Education. With more than twenty years of experience in medical education, Patricia’s work spans quality of life, faculty development, and accreditation.In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Patricia reflects on her professional journey and how the KIPRIME experience has helped her step back and consider where she wants to focus her energy next. She shares how caring for people and helping them flourish has always been at the heart of her work, whether with students, faculty, or institutions.Patricia's conversation with Alina Jenkins also explores the realities of medical education in Brazil, the importance of strong faculty development, the role of mentorship, and what it means to move from asking “what” and “how” to searching for “why”.Patricia also speaks powerfully about finding her voice as a woman working in the Global South, the courage to be authentic, and why embracing imperfection is part of being heard in global academic spaces.

Dr Renée Stalmeijer is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Development and Research and the School of Health Professions Education at the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences of Maastricht University in the Netherlands. An educational scientist by training, Renée has been active in health professions education since 2005, combining the roles of researcher, educational quality manager, and teacher of research methodology. As of September 2025, she is the Programme Director of the Master of Health Professions Education.Renée’s research focuses on how healthcare professionals learn to work together effectively, particularly by using the theoretical lenses of socio-cultural learning and workplace learning. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Renée explores what it means to prepare learners for real-world collaboration, when and how people learn best in clinical settings, and why humility and community matter for the next generation of medical education researchers. 

Roghayeh Gandomkar is a medical doctor by training, an Associate Professor and Director of the Department of Medical Education at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS). She earned her Master’s degree in Medical Education in 2010 and her PhD in the same field in 2016, both from TUMS.Since 2009, she has built her career in medical education. She served as Head of the Evaluation Unit at TUMS for 15 years, contributing significantly to the development of evaluation and quality assurance systems. Roghayeh has also played a key role in establishing accreditation agencies in Iran and is now a member of the national accreditation committee for MD-granting programs. Alongside these responsibilities, her primary role is teaching and supervising Master’s and PhD students in medical education.In this episode of the KIMPRIME podcast, Roghayeh talks to Alina Jenkins about her research on understanding and supporting the regulation of learning among medical students and her research on accreditation processes, including the factors that influence surveyors’ decision-making and motivations.

Dr Yu-Che Chang is Deputy Director of Taiwan’s Chang Gung Medical Education Research Centre, where his work focuses on how doctors develop a sense of professional identity, particularly in high-pressure environments such as emergency medicine.His research explores how clinicians understand their roles, how culture and context shape professionalism, and how medical students and doctors navigate workplace expectations at different stages of their careers.In this episode of the KIPRIME Podcast, Yu-Che joins Alina Jenkins to reflect on what it really means to become a doctor. He discusses how professional identity forms over time, how it is tested under pressure, and how clinicians make sense of who they are at work.

Matilda Liljedahl is an Associate Professor of Health Professions Education at Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and a Clinical Research Fellow and Resident in Clinical Oncology at Sahlgrenska University Hospital. She graduated as a medical doctor in 2014 and earned a PhD in Medical Education from Karolinska Institutet in 2016.Matilda's main research interest is workplace learning, and she now leads a research group focusing on workplace learning among medical doctors at all levels, including the training of clinical supervisors. Additionally, she holds a growing interest in patient-doctor communication, especially in the context of oncology.In this episode of the KIPRIME Podcast, Matilda will talk to Alina about common threads in her research journey, such as ‘digging where she stands’ as a way to nurture her longstanding interest in learning in the clinical setting. She also shares her experience using and communicating qualitative research in a field that heavily relies on quantitative research.

Professor Hiroshi Nishigori is Professor of Medical Education at Nagoya University’s Graduate School of Medicine and the current President of the Japan Society for Medical Education. He earned his Master’s in Medical Education from the University of Dundee, and later completed his PhD in Health Professions Education at Maastricht University.Originally trained as an internist, he became deeply interested in how people learn and grow during his early years of medical practice - not only as clinicians, but as educators and human beings.Over the years, Hiroshi's work has explored the intersection of culture and work ethic, asking a fundamental question at the heart of medicine: Why do doctors work for patients? The very question that also framed his PhD thesis. Rather than treating professionalism as a fixed set of individual traits, his research approaches medicine as a culturally embedded form of work, shaped by shared values, social expectations, and moral commitments.Drawing on uniquely Japanese concepts such as Bushido - a moral discipline and sense of integrity shared with traditional arts like judo and kendo - and Yarigai, the sense of fulfilment found in meaningful service to others, Hiroshi’s work goes beyond a mere description of Japanese culture. It seeks to place these perspectives into dialogue with the global medical education community, not as culturally exotic examples, but as conceptual resources that can challenge, enrich, and expand dominant Western frameworks.In this episode, Hiroshi talks with Alina Jenkins about how culture shapes doctors’ relationships with work—from duty and moral responsibility to finding meaning through service—and why continuing to ask why doctors work for patients remains essential to medical education worldwide. Together, they explore how culturally grounded perspectives can open new conversations about well-being, ethics, and the moral purpose of medicine across different societies.

Dr Halah Ibrahim is the Vice President for International Outreach at the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). She is a graduate of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City and completed an internal medicine residency at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. She also holds a Master’s in Health Professions Education from Johns Hopkins University. Halah has lived and worked in the Middle East for the past 17 years, where she has led efforts to adapt Western frameworks of graduate medical education to align with local cultural and societal values. Her research focuses on the globalisation of medical education, including developing culturally relevant professionalism curricula and advancing palliative care education in the United Arab Emirates. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and is committed to fostering equitable opportunities in medical education scholarship worldwide. Through her editorial work and multinational collaborations, she actively mentors trainees and junior faculty and supports authors from countries underrepresented in medical education publishing.In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Halah talks about her research at the intersection of Western and Eastern traditions in medical education and her efforts to build a more inclusive global community of scholars.

Rune Dall Jensen is Associate Professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University and Head of Simulation at MidtSim, Centre for Continuing Professional Development in Central Denmark Region. His academic work explores how motor skills interact with intrapersonal and interpersonal competencies, with a particular focus on simulation-based surgical education. Rune emphasises a holistic approach to surgical performance, aiming to support skill development in surgical residents and strengthen team collaboration in clinical settings.He serves as Associate Editor for Advances in Simulation, Advances in Health Sciences Education, and Medical Education. In addition, he is a board member of AMEE’s Simulation Committee, part of the AMEE Programme Committee, and Academic Co-Chair of the International Clinical Skills Conference.In this episode of the KIMPRIME podcast, Rune speaks with Alina Jenkins about how simulation can be designed to support not just motor skills but also communication, confidence, and reflective practice. 

Dr Andrea Gingerich is an Associate Professor in the Division of Medical Sciences with the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada, where she teaches for the University of British Columbia’s Northern Medical Program. She has a PhD in Health Professions Education from Maastricht University, a Master of Medical Education degree from the University of Dundee and before all of that, she practised as a naturopathic doctor in rural Ontario. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Andrea talks to Alina Jenkins about how her research starts by noticing situations in which so many health professionals are not doing what they have been trained to do that their counter-normative behaviour has become the norm, and then seeks to determine why people believe their noncompliance is necessary.

Dr Mildred López is Head of the Division of Education & Innovation at the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), the country’s largest public healthcare institution, where she leads national faculty development, curriculum transformation, and educational research initiatives impacting thousands of healthcare professionals across Mexico.Previously Associate Dean at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mildred continues her academic engagement as a researcher and educator in health professions education, drawing from a rich interdisciplinary background in engineering, psychology, and educational innovation. Her work focuses on reimagining learning through coaching, peer learning, and human-centred curriculum design, all while championing student wellbeing and faculty growth. She holds a PhD in Educational Innovation, a Master’s in Quality and Productivity Systems, and degrees in Mechatronics Engineering and Psychology.In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Mildred speaks with Alina Jenkins about how creativity, systems thinking, and a commitment to wellbeing can shape the future of health professions education.

Samuel Edelbring is a full professor of higher education at Mälardalen University in Sweden. He holds a degree in education, a PhD in medical education from Karolinska Institutet, and a docent title (Associate professor) in medical education from Linköping University. Since 2001, he has been engaged in development and research in health professions education. His fascination with digital possibilities led him to pursue research on pedagogical aspects of computerised virtual patients. In various studies, he has contributed knowledge on how virtual patients can be used to enhance students’ clinical practice and how online virtual patient activities can connect students from different professions in interprofessional learning. He is also engaged in strengthening the field of health professions education research on a national level to create and sustain arenas and networks for the next generation of HPE scholars and to highlight the field's importance at the policy level.In this episode, Samuel talks to Alina Jenkins about how virtual patients can deepen clinical reasoning, why digital tools can bring learners from different professions together, and what it takes to build a strong, sustainable community of health professions education researchers for the future.

Dr Zareen Zaidi, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine at George Washington School of Medicine. She practices general internal medicine at the academic faculty practice in DC. Zareen completed the FAIMER fellowship from Philadelphia and has a PhD in Medical Education from Maastricht University School of Health Professions Education. At GW, she is the Co-Director of the Academy of Education Scholars and the Associate Director for Education Research and Scholarship. She has served as the chair of the Association of American Medical Colleges Research in Medical Education committee for 2021 and is the founding chair of the MedEdSCHOLAR program. As a qualitative researcher, she has conducted research in culturally diverse contexts across three continents, using critical epistemological lenses. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Zareen talks to Alina Jenkins about her passion for using critical lenses in her research projects and how she works to challenge traditional perspectives in medical education research and practice. 

Neera Jain is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Medical and Health Sciences Education, School of Medicine, at Waipapa Taumata Rau – The University of Auckland, Aotearoa, New Zealand. She completed her PhD in Education at the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Auckland in 2021. She completed a Master’s of Science in Rehabilitation Counselling in 2004 at Boston UniversityBefore her research career, Neera worked as a vocational counsellor (in the US), managed a disabled people’s community law centre (in New Zealand), and led student disability services for health professions students at Columbia University and UCSF.Her research focuses on ableism and disability inclusion in medical education, research, and practice. At present, her work explores disabled medical students’ intersectional and culturally specific experiences of ableism. In this episode, host Alina Jenkins speaks to Neera about what true inclusion means in medical education, how concepts like haunting and futurity can help us see systems differently, and how we might imagine a future where disabled learners are fully recognised, supported, and valued.

We’re back with a new season of the KIPRIME Podcast, exploring the ideas shaping the future of medical education.In this first episode, host Alina Jenkins speaks with Dr Julián Varas Cohen, a surgeon and Associate Professor at the Catholic de Chile in Santiago, Chile. He leads simulation-based medical education research, using remote asynchronous feedback to accelerate healthcare skill acquisition.He has developed and validated various training methodologies, reaching more than 40,000 trainees across 1000 skill-based disciplines (surgery, nursing, gastronomy, and engineering) in 13 countries. He now integrates AI to enhance teaching and scale accessibility to high-quality training. He has partnered with over 20 institutions, like MUHAS in Tanzania and UCSF, to expand high-quality, evidence-based training throughout America and Africa. His mission is to promote equitable access to simulation education and mentor the next generation of clinician-educators.Their conversation delves into the power of feedback and how it helps learners grow, how technology is changing the way it’s delivered, and why creating equitable access to medical training remains at the heart of his mission.

Diantha Soemantri is a Professor and Vice Director of medical education at the Indonesian Medical Education and Research Institute (IMERI), Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia, where she graduated as a medical doctor in 2005. She acquired the Master of Medical Education title from the University of Dundee in 2007 and PhD in the same field from the University of Melbourne in 2013.  She is now the head of the Master in Medical Education Program at Universitas Indonesia and is also responsible for the multi- and interprofessional education of the Health Sciences Cluster. In this episode of the KIMPRIME podcast, Diantha talks to Alina Jenkins about her current research exploring the practice of delivering written feedback in a medical education context. She is also studying medical students’ acceptance and resistance towards e-portfolios as an assessment tool, especially in the context of specific cultural values of high collectivism, large power distance and high uncertainty avoidance. This is the final episode of series three. We hope to return for series four in 2025!    

Dr Joanna Tai is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University in Victoria, Australia.She is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and an active member of several professional associations, including the Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professions Education, the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, and the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction.Joanna's research spans several key areas of interest. Her work on feedback for learning explores how students engage with and contribute to feedback processes. Since her early days as a medical student, Joanna has been fascinated by the challenges surrounding feedback, particularly from the student perspective. She focuses on developing evaluative judgment and peer feedback to enhance students' lifelong learning capabilities. This research has led her to collaborate with colleagues on various projects to understand and improve feedback literacy among students.Joanna has also developed a growing interest in assessment for inclusion. She realised that the traditional approach to assessment often requires accommodations and adjustments, emphasising a "deficit approach."In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Joanna talks to Alina Jenkins about improving educational practices to ensure all students can thrive, regardless of their background or abilities.

Per J. Palmgren is an associate professor in medical education and assistant senior lecturer at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management, and Ethics (LIME) at KI. He has been the director of doctoral studies at LIME since 2022. Per works predominantly with higher education and pedagogy for doctoral and faculty development courses, and he also works partly as a pedagogical advisor and senior lecturer in higher education at the Scandinavian College of Naprapathic Manual Medicine.Per’s primary line of research focuses on the environment in which students learn, and teachers work, but his approach has changed over the years. Since his Ph.D., his attention has shifted to researching educational environments with an organizational perspective. Today, Per is most interested in students' learning and teachers facilitating students' learning or simply in moving from introspecting “learning environments” to “learning in environments.” In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Per talks to Alina Jenkins about his eclectic areas of research and how a background in dance led to a strong passion for teaching and learning.

Mandana Shirazi is a Professor of Medical Sciences at Tehran University (TUMS) and an Affiliated Professor at Karolinska Institute. She started her medical career with a BSc and MSc in midwifery from TUMS and subsequently began working as a faculty member of Midwifery at TUMS. After five years, she started working at the Educational Development Center (EDC) and was later promoted to the position of Executive Manager of the Continuous Medical Education Office.Mandana then came to KI to study for her PhD, where her thesis focused on the diagnosis and treatment of depression by general practitioners. Returning to Iran around 15 years ago, Mandana founded the first Standardised Patient unit in the country at the Educational Development Centre of TUMS. Ten years after establishing the SP program in Iran, the Ministry of Health considered High Stake OSCE for the graduation of all medical students, the crucial part of which is SPs. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Mandana talks to Alina Jenkins about the importance of using SPs to maintain patient safety and why it was the main focus of her research on the healthcare system in Iran.  

Ardi Findyartini is a medical doctor and a Professor in Medical Education, from the Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia, Jakarta. She is currently the Head of Medical Education Unit and the Chair of Medical Education Cluster of Indonesia Medical Education and Research Institute (IMERI) Faculty of Medicine Universitas Indonesia. She is also the current chair of ASPIRE excellence in faculty development panel, an initiative of AMEE international organisation in medical education towards excellence in different areas, as well as being a member of the faculty development committee in AMEE.  Ardi has a wide interest in research in medical and health professions education. Her areas of research started by focusing on clinical reasoning, critical thinking and how the two should be taught and incorporated in undergraduate medical curriculum. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Ardi talks to Alina Jenkins about how her research has been transformed to studies in faculty development, humanism, and professionalism, interprofessional education and sociocultural factors in medical and health professions education.  

Söeren Huwendiek graduated from medical school at Heidelberg University in Germany, where he worked for 10 years as a physician and as a medical educator. He gained a Master of Medical Education degree from Bern University and a PhD in Health Professions Education from Maastricht University. Since 2012, he has been the head of the Department of Assessment and Evaluation of the Institute of Medical Education (IML) in Switzerland. Recently, he was promoted to Associate Professor for Medical Education.He supervises PhD, MD (Dr. med.) and Master of Medical Education theses and is a member of several editorial boards including Perspectives on Medical Education.Söeren has a broad interest in teaching and research in medical education, among his favorite themes are formative assessment, innovative ways of summative assessment, communication and practical skills, and blended learning. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast he talks to Alina Jenkins about his passion in improving medical education to help medical students become the best doctors and clinicians, ultimately improving patient care.  

Satid Thammasitboon is Associate Professor in Pediatrics, division of Critical Care Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas where he serves in various academic positions promoting research and scholarship across the continuum of medical education. He’s also Director of Centre for Research Innovation and Scholarship in Health Professions Education.Satid grew up and went to medical school in southern Thailand and came to the USA for residency, fellowship, and an advanced degree in medical education.His scholarship philosophy centers on the conviction that medical education research is socially constructed and context-specific: namely that scholarship is a product of systematic inquiry and meaningful engagement of multidisciplinary educators and scholars with shared domains of interest. To advance the field of medical education, research is the critical component for providing practical solutions to real-world problems. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Satid talks to Alina Jenkins about how he has developed a departmental foundation in innovative medical education research that has international extensions.  

Gabrielle Finn is Associate Vice President for Teaching, Learning, and Students at the University of Manchester, where she was previously Professor of Medical Education and Vice Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine, and Health.She has a track record in establishing undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. In an earlier role, Gabrielle was the founding Director of the Health Professions Education Unit (HPEU) and Chair of the Postgraduate Board at the Hull York Medical School (HYMS), where she worked extensively on widening access and curriculum development, including the implementation of Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships into medical programmes. She was also Programme Director for the blended and distance learning courses for the MSc, Postgraduate Diploma and Certificate in Health Professions Education at HYMS, working with AdvanceHE to deliver this accredited programme.Gabrielle has a diverse research portfolio which spans both qualitative and quantitative paradigms.  She initially conducted her doctoral research exploring anatomy, pedagogy, and medical professionalism. Gabrielle has over 150 peer-reviewed outputs, including books, book chapters, journal articles, and over 140 international conference presentations. She is an advocate for the use of arts and humanities with curricula, researching their use. She has a keen interest in exploring the hidden curriculum, publishing a body of work with Professor Fred Hafferty, and challenging the notion of teaching by stealth. More recently, Gabrielle has been working on a range of areas pertaining to equality, diversity, and inclusion.In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Gabrielle talks to Alina Jenkins about an evidence base for innovative methods of teaching anatomy, Professionalism and the Conscientiousness Index and novel research methods using the development of love and breakup letters to help research empathy and empathic dissonance.

Dr Sandra Monteiro is a scientist in the McMaster University, faculty of health sciences program for education, research, innovation, and theory (known as MERIT). She has a faculty appointment in the faculty of health sciences, Department of Medicine, Division of Education and Innovation and a second appointment to the Centre for Simulation Based Learning as the Director of Simulation Scholarship.The foundation of her training is in cognitive psychology, and she is known internationally for her research program on clinical reasoning and her expertise in measurement principles and competency-based assessment. At McMaster University, she teaches and supervises students in various graduate programs, including Rehabilitation Sciences, Health Sciences Education and Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour. In 2021, she was recognised for her contributions to education and mentorship with a Canadian Association of Medical Education Meridith Marks New Educator Award.In this episode of the KIPRIME Podcast, Sandra talks to Alina Jenkins about working alongside one of the giants of medical education research, Geoff Norman, and her research into breaking down assumptions in how we look at clinical reasoning. 

Anders Sondén trained and is still active as a surgeon in Stockholm, yet for many years, he has devoted most of his time to medical education, being a clinical teacher, director of studies in undergraduate and postgraduate education, researcher, and educational leader.  He is interested in the whole spectrum of medical education, with his prime focus in clinical sciences, especially workplace-based education, and he is dedicated to the understanding and improvement of uni and interprofessional workplace-based learning. Consequently, he’s been involved in several projects within medical education, from the course level, creating new learning activities, to the curriculum level in the development of the new medical programs at Karolinska Institutet.  In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Anders talks to Alina Jenkins about his approach to the field of medical education research, where his research questions have often emanated from a problematic element in his work as a teacher, faculty member, or surgeon.  

Veena Singaram is Associate Professor in HPE and has recently been appointed as the Head of the Inaugural Health Professions Education (HPE) Unit at the College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.She began her academic journey as an anatomy lecturer and then transitioned into the field of medical education. This path eventually led her to complete a PhD in Health Professions Education from Maastricht University. In 2022 she received the Distinguished Educator Award from the Southern African Association of Health Professions Educationalists.Her current research focuses on utilising digital tools to create a psychologically safe environment for formative assessment feedback, enabling healthcare trainees to learn and progress without fear of failure. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Veena talks to Alina Jenkins about how this area of research also delves into addressing power dynamics and hierarchy in clinical training environments, aiming to foster a constructive feedback culture and inclusive learning settings.

Dr Dan Schumacher is a tenured professor in the Division of Emergency Medicine at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where he also serves as co-director of the CCHMC Education Research Unit and Education Research Scholars Program. His career has been dedicated to residency administration and medical education research, and he holds a PhD from the Maastricht University School of Health Professions Education. His research focuses on competency-based assessment, including milestones, EPAs, and resident-sensitive quality measures that he developed as part of his PhD work.  His research on competency-based assessment has garnered substantial external funding and made important advances in patient-focused assessment approaches, such as EPAs and RSQMs. The goal of his research is to ensure that training and educational outcomes prepare physicians to achieve the outcomes that patients need.Dan is one of a select number of Americans who are members of the International Competency-based Medical Education Collaborators. He received Academic Medicine's Excellence in Reviewing Award as well as multiple top reviewer awards from the Journal of Graduate Medical Education. He was also Cincinnati Children's first recipient of the prestigious and competitive Macy Faculty Scholar Award from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation and received the Cincinnati Children's Educational Achievement Award in 2018.  

Yoon Soo Park is an Educational Data Scientist and currently serves as Department Head and Professor in the Department of Medical Education at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He trained at Columbia University, where he earned an MS in Applied Statistics and PhD in Measurement, Evaluation, and Statistics. He began his career in the testing and assessment industry, working as an educational and operational statistician.  In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Yoon Soo talks to Alina Jenkins about his transition to working in the field of medical education research and his two key areas of research: applying validity research to guide innovative educational assessments and developing methodologies in learning analytics.  

Ahmed Rashid is Professor of Medical Education at University College London, where he is Vice Dean for the UCL Faculty of Medical Sciences, and he leads the UCL Centre for International Medical Education Collaborations (CIMEC).  Ahmed is also involved as a chief examiner for the General Medical Council PLAB exam that international doctors must sit to practice in the UK. On top of all that, he’s a part-time NHS doctor at a busy surgery in St Albans, Hertfordshire.  His research in medical education is inspired by the international collaboration projects he leads and examines the impacts of globalisation on medical education, with a particular focus on power, politics, and migration.   In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Ahmed talks to Alina Jenkins about his areas of research and his interest in the role of diaspora physicians and medical educators, including unintended consequences of their (almost exclusively well-meaning) involvement in medical education systems in their origin countries. 

Dr. Sayra Cristancho is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery and a Scientist at the Centre for Education Research & Innovation (CERI) at Western University, London, Ontario, Canada. She received her PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of British Columbia.  Sayra’s research program investigates how action teams navigate and respond to disruptive events. Her research program aims to show how best to support training and practice for resilient teaming in healthcare. To this end, she developed a unique research approach that cross-pollinates qualitative research, sociobiology, and engineering principles with insights from various industries, including healthcare, tactical, emergency response, business, and music.  In this episode of the KIPRIME Podcast, Sayra talks to Alina Jenkins about her unique disciplinary background as the first engineer to join the medical education research community in Canada and how that has allowed her to pioneer theoretical and methodological innovations.       

Professor Kevin Eva is Associate Director and Senior Scientist in the Centre for Health Education Scholarship and Professor and Director of Educational Research and Scholarship in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Medical Education. Kevin’s research is diverse. It has impacted medical school admissions by introducing multiple mini-interviews as a rigorous process to select trainees based on their interpersonal skills. His work has also advanced the understanding of clinical reasoning, guided improvements in experts’ ratings of student performance, and fundamentally altered how the field thinks about self-assessment, feedback, and their role in performance improvement. The core theme of Kevin's diverse research interests is how we can improve decision-making in the context of health professional training and practice. Kevin has tremendously influenced health profession education for 25 years by providing innovative ideas, perspectives, and scientific writing skills. His work as editor of a leading research journal in medical education has had a remarkable impact on health profession researchers worldwide, highlighting the importance of scientific rigour. In this first episode of series three of the KIPRIME podcast, Kevin talks to Alina Jenkins about his career, his research areas, and his advice for anyone wanting to develop a career in medical education research.   

Rola Ajjawi is Professor of Educational Research at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University, Australia. She has a Bachelor's Honours Degree in Physiotherapy and worked as a physiotherapist and clinical educator before moving into academia full-time with the completion of her PhD in 2007. Since then, she has led a program of research centred on work-integrated learning with an interest in inclusion, assessment, and feedback in the workplace. Rola is Deputy Editor of the journal Medical Education, on the editorial board of Teaching in Higher Education and is lead editor of an edited book, Assessment for Inclusion in Higher Education: Promoting Equity and Social Justice (Routledge). She also has over 140 publications, including peer-review journal articles, book chapters and books. She has been researching health professions education since starting her PhD in 2003, building an international research portfolio in feedback, clinical supervision, and assessment-for-inclusion. Her research has shed light on social, relational, and cultural influences on learning to promote student success.

Professor Samar Abdelazim Ahmed is Vice-Dean for Education at Dubai Medical School for Girls, having previously been full professor in forensic medicine at Ain Shams University, Cairo. She is the Founding Director of the FAIMER Fellowship in Health Professions Education ASU-MENA-FRI and the associate editor for Medical Education in the Frontiers.  Samar has extensive experience in quality assurance and evaluation in medical education, including strategic planning and implementation and the development and implementation of educational initiatives.  She has worked to develop an organisational culture and a community of practice in the Middle East and North Africa. Her research areas are broad and range from polarity mapping to transformation and program evaluation methodologies. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Samar talks about her research and her unique approach to cultural contextualisation.

Dr Laura Zwaan, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Medical Education Research Rotterdam (iMERR) of the Erasmus MC. She has a cognitive psychology and epidemiology background and obtained a PhD from the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.   Dr Zwaan is an active member of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM). She initiated the European Diagnostic Error in Medicine conferences and served as the chair of their research committee (2015- 2017). For her efforts to improve diagnostic quality and safety, she was awarded the Mark L. Graber Award in 2021.   Dr Zwaan is fascinated by how clinicians make complex decisions under uncertainty. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, she talks to Alina Jenkins about her area of research, which focuses on improving the clinical reasoning process. Together with her PhD and MSc students, she currently works on ways to improve clinical reasoning education and how students can learn best from mistakes.  

Bridget O’Brien, PhD, is a Professor of Medicine and an education scientist in the Center for Faculty Educators at the University of California, San Francisco. As co-director of the Teaching Scholars Program and the UCSF-University of Utrecht Health Professions Education doctoral program, she teaches and mentors faculty and learners interested in education research and scholarship. At the San Francisco VA, she directs the Advanced Fellowship in Health Professions Education Evaluation and Research. In 2015 she was selected as one of five national Macy Faculty Scholars supported by the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation. She is also a deputy editor for the journal Academic Medicine.She began her career in medical education working on the book Educating Physicians: A Call for Reform of Medical School and Residency, published by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Dr. O'Brien's research focuses primarily on understanding and improving workplace learning among health professionals. Her work has explored learning processes in interprofessional, team, and longitudinal clinical experiences. Her current work studies opportunities and barriers to lifelong learning in clinical practice. Dr. O'Brien has expertise in qualitative research and has authored and co-authored several articles on qualitative methods, including guidelines for reporting on qualitative research.  In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Bridget talks to Alina Jenkins about her background in organizational behavior and professional education and what inspired her to move into improving workplace learning.  

Nikolaos worked as a dentist for seven years before becoming a senior consultant in orofacial pain in 2011. That year he was awarded nationally and internationally for his research on mechanisms and factors associated with human orofacial pain.In 2017 he became an associate professor and senior lecturer at the Karolinska Institutet. He was elected Vice president for the Neuroscience group in IADR (2022-2024) and recently became Programme Director for the Study programme in Dentistry. Alongside his research in orofacial pain, he focuses on pedagogical research, specifically investigating how learning is shaped within different national and international medical and teaching programmes. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Nikolaos talks to Alina Jenkins about his inspiration to move towards medical education research and his focus on academic and professional writing. 

Chris Watling is a medical education researcher at Western University’s Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry in London, Canada. Trained as a neurologist, he embarked on a mid-career journey of graduate work and professional development to create the foundation for a program of research and scholarship in education.  As a researcher, Chris studies why doctors are difficult to coach, why feedback frequently misses the mark, and why professional culture so often undermines the best-laid curriculum plans. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Chris talks more about these areas of research and about his favourite professional activity, teaching (and writing about) academic writing.   

Christina St-Onge is professor in the Department of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Université de Sherbrooke, Quebec. She completed her PhD at Université Laval in Measurement and Assessment in 2007 and she did her post-doctorate fellowship at the Medical Council of Canada.  Since 2008, Christina has been a scientist at the CPSS – Centre for Health Sciences Education. Her research program stems from a psychometric perspective; wanting to quantify measurement error and distinguish it from the ‘true score’ but has evolved to draw outside the traditional psychometric lines when tackling issues of validity. She combines her expertise in psychometrics with a perspective stemming from social sciences to address issues of validity and validation. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Christina talks to Alina Jenkins about this non-traditional approach and also how technology and patients could be leveraged to enhance the quality of health profession trainees’ assessment and the validity of assessment data interpretation. 

Professor Madawa Chandratilake is a Professor Of Medical Education, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka.  He has published 29 research articles in journals, six book chapters, and more than 40 conference papers contributed as author/co-author and he has completed six funded research projects as a member of a team. In his program of research, he is attempting to understand the impact of culture on professionalism in health professions. The differences in the importance placed by different ‘groups’ on various aspects of professionalism can be attributed not only to culture but also to differences in socioeconomic backgrounds.  Professor Chandratilake has taken the pathway of exploring the validity of cultural theories in understanding similarities and differences. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Professor Chandratilake speaks to Alina Jenkins about the most common professional values which are important in the medical field, his experience of working in the global north compared to the global south, and how he’s using his research to understand the cultural differences between the two.  

Dr. Lara Varpio completed her PhD in 2007 at the University of Waterloo, Canada in collaboration with the Wilson Centre for Research in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her award-winning PhD research investigated the impact of Electronic Health Records on medical trainee socialization. She spent the first 6 years of her career with the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Ottawa, Canada, and the Academy for Innovation in Medical Education. Then in 2013, Dr. Varpio moved to Washington DC, USA to work with the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences where she was a founding member of the university's Center for Health Professions Education.  Today, Dr. Varpio is internationally recognized for her expertise in qualitative research methods and methodologies, and in Social Science and Humanities theories which she uses to investigate questions relating to how clinicians, patients, and researchers influence the performance of teams and organizations, and how those teams and organizations impact on the individual.   Her research has won national and international awards.  In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Dr. Varpio talks to Alina Jenkins about failure in health professions education & scholarship, how to find your voice as a medical researcher, and her new job at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania. 

Anna Pettersson is Assistant Professor and Programme Director at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. She received her Ph.D. in physiotherapy in 2005 and her MSc in medical education in 2013.  Anna has extensive experience in educational development and pedagogical leadership as a member of the board of education and is a member of the Pedagogical Academy at the Karolinska Institutet. Her research interest lies within learning, educational research, and quality with a particular interest in professional development, reflective practice, and life-long learning. Anna hopes to gain a better understanding of how to facilitate students’ capacity for reflective practice and support students in their professional development. In addition to educational research, she is also passionate about change work in the academic context and the scholarly approach to teaching and learning.  In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Anna talks to Alina Jenkins about her current research - learning anatomy. While a lot of research has focused on instructional design, developing, and comparing digital tools, test scores, and student perception, her research group has studied the student processes towards understanding anatomical structures presented as 3D visualizations.  

Professor Paul Tiffin is Professor of Health Services and Workforce Research at the University of York and Hull York Medical School and an Honorary Consultant Adolescent Psychiatrist.   Paul is a quantitative methodologist who seeks to measure personal characteristics and abilities in order to make predictions about future performance and behaviours. His academic work is focused on eliciting and measuring psychological phenomena (psychometrics) and linking these to outcomes. These include future educational performance and interpersonal behaviours. For example, how likely is it, if a particular person is accepted into medical school, that they will exhibit unprofessional behaviour as a student or qualified doctor? Consequently, as a quantitative methodologist, Paul draws from both the ‘individual differences’ psychology tradition as well as epidemiology.  More recently Paul has been applying the predictive modelling approaches offered by machine learning.   In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast 2022, Paul tells Alina Jenkins more about his areas of research and discusses how he applies quantitative methods to address critical issues in relation to health services, and in particular, the healthcare workforce. 

Anique de Bruin is Professor of Self-regulation in Higher Education and Vice-director of the School of Health Professions Education at Maastricht University. Her research centres around questions of metacognitive and self-regulatory processes in learning. She is particularly fascinated by how subjective learning experiences shape self-regulation of learning, and how effective instructional design and strategy training can support self-regulation. She recently developed a novel research line related to how learners monitor and regulate their learning effort, to understand and support how they learn to persist when things get rough, and how they take breaks to replete. In this episode of the KIPRIME podcast, Anique talks to Alina Jenkins about her early research studying chess players, why the COVID pandemic has had an impact on self-regulatory learning, and her current focus on effort monitoring. 

Dr Kulamakan (Mahan) Kulasegaram is a Scientist at the Wilson Centre and Temerty Faculty of Medicine, where is the Temerty Chair in Learner Assessment and Program Evaluation. Additionally, he is an Associate Professor and Director of the Office of Education Scholarship in the Department of Family & Community Medicine. Mahan’s research advances our understanding of how assessment can help learners develop clinical reasoning and how education programs can use assessment as a tool for systems and outcomes for learners.  His research examines educational assessment as an opportunity to enhance learning and support the transfer of learning required to develop clinical expertise in medicine. In this second episode of the KIMPRIME podcast 2022, Mahan discusses the next stage of his research program with Alina Jenkins. Supported by the Temerty Chair in Learner Assessment - this stage looks at utilizing assessment big data to understand opportunities to optimize programs and their impact on learners, teachers, and eventual clinical care. He is developing models with national and international collaborators to facilitate education data sharing within and between institutions as well as identifying best practices in this new area for medical education.  

In this first episode of the KIPRIME podcast 2022, Dr Liselotte Dyrbye talks to Alina Jenkins about her key research areas, including human-centred design processes to improve the learning and work environment and how to better influence change within medical education and the impact of stress on cognition and behaviors.  Dr Dyrbe is Professor of Medicine, Senior Associate Dean of Faculty and Chief Well-Being Officer at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. She completed her medical training at the University of Wisconsin Medical School, residency at University of Washington School of Medicine, and a Masters of Health Professions Education from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. She has devoted her career to advancing medical student, resident, and physician well-being.  She was elected to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine consensus study and co-authored the resulting report, Taking Action Against Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being, released in the fall of 2019. The report calls upon leaders in healthcare organizations to prioritize major improvements in clinical work and learning environments to prevent and mitigate clinician burnout and foster professional well-being. In addition to her research, she has served on national education-related committees, held institutional leadership roles within undergraduate and graduate medical education, overseen faculty development, and started an Academy of Educational Excellence at Mayo Clinic.   

Professor Henk Schmidt was the first winner of the Karolinska Prize for Research in Medical Education in 2004. He is a professor of psychology at Erasmus University’s faculty of social sciences and founding dean of its problem-based psychology curriculum. Between 2009 and 2013, he was the Vice-Chancellor (‘Rector Magnificus’) of Erasmus University in Rotterdam. His research in the field of medical education is outstanding and highly original. His special research areas are problem-based learning, clinical reasoning, and the acquisition of expertise in medicine. Professor Schmidt’s work has had a great impact on the research field, and many of his former students have become prominent and influential researchers. His studies have inspired applications in not only problem-based learning but have promoted student-centred practices in general.  Professor Schmidt’s research has influenced medical education worldwide and his influence goes beyond the field of medical education into education. 

Professor Ronald Harden is a world leader in medical education. He is committed to developing new approaches to curriculum planning, assessment and to teaching and learning.  Ideas which he has pioneered include the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) which has been universally adopted as a standard approach to assessment of clinical competence, the spiral curriculum and the SPICES model for curriculum planning and models for outcome-based education. He has published more than 400 papers in leading journals and is co-editor of the best-selling book – “A Practical Guide for Medical Teachers.” Winner of the Karolinska Prize in 2006, his contributions to excellence in medical education have attracted other numerous awards including an honorary fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians, Surgeons of Canada, the prestigious Hubbard Award by the National Board of Medical Examiners in the USA and recognition by the Kellogg Foundation for his contributions to medical education in South America. He was awarded by the Queen the OBE for his services to medical education.  He was presented in Singapore in February 2006 with the ‘Mentoring, Innovation and Leadership in Education Scholarship' (MILES) award for ‘outstanding contributions to the advancement of global medical education and academic medicine’.In 2009 he was awarded the ASME Richard Farrow Gold Medal, in recognition of the contributions he has made to medical education. In 2010 he was the recipient of the AMEE 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his contributions to medical education and the work of the Association.  In 2012 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Medical Education by the International Medical University in Malaysia and an Honorary Doctorate in Medicine of the University of Tampere, Finland.In November 2013 Professor Harden was awarded the Cura Personalis honour, the University of Georgetown’s highest award.Professor Harden is Professor of Medical Education (Emeritus) University of Dundee and Professor of Medical Education, Al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Editor of Medical Teacher and General Secretary and Treasurer of the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE). He was formerly Teaching Dean and Director of the Centre for Medical Education at the University of Dundee.    

 Dr Richard Reznick is Professor of Surgery and Dean Emeritus at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.  He received his undergraduate university education and medical degree from McGill University, followed by a general surgical residency at the University of Toronto. He spent two years in fellowship training, first obtaining a Masters’ degree in medical education from Southern Illinois University, followed by a fellowship in colorectal surgery at the University of Texas in Houston, Texas.   Since his first faculty appointment at the University of Toronto in 1987, Dr. Reznick has been active in both colorectal surgery and research in medical education. He was instrumental in developing a performance-based examination, which is now used for medical licensure in Canada. He ran a research program on assessment of technical competence for surgeons and supervised a fellowship program in surgical education.  Winner of the Karolinska prize in 2010, Dr. Reznick has received numerous other awards for his work in education, including the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Medal in Surgery and the James H. Graham Award of Merit, the Association for Surgical Education Distinguished Educator Award, the National Board of Medical Examiners John P. Hubbard Award, the Daniel C. Tosteson Award for Leadership in Medical Education and the 2006 Inaugural University of Toronto President’s Teaching Award. In 2015, he was the recipient of McGill University’s Medicine Alumni Global Award for Lifetime Achievement.  Dr. Reznick is an honourary fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, the Royal College of Surgeons (England) and has recently been appointed as President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.   He’s the author of over 130 peer-reviewed publications and has delivered nearly 300 lectures to hospitals, universities and scientific organizations around the world. 

Dr Geoff Norman is Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University, Ontario. He received a B.Sc. in physics from the University of Manitoba in 1965 and a Ph.D in nuclear physics from McMaster University in 1971.He then changed tack, and after an M.A in educational psychology he moved into the world of medical education research.His primary research has been in the area of expert diagnostic reasoning which has revealed that experts use two kinds of knowledge to do diagnosis - the formal analytical knowledge of signs and symptoms and physiologic mechanisms, and experiential knowledge based on the hundreds of thousands of patients they have encountered.His research has had a significant impact on our understanding of the development of expertise in clinical medicine. Furthermore, his research has yielded important contributions to our knowledge of the complexity of pattern recognition, clinical reasoning and clinical problem solving. His scientific originality and insights extend into numerous related areas of medicine and cognition, in particular areas such as assessment of learning outcomes and clinical performance, visual perception, and curriculum design. Dr Norman’s studies have provided a deep insight into research-based reforms in medical curricula worldwide.He is the author of 10 books in education, measurement and statistic and has written over 300 journal articles. As well as winning the Karolinska Prize in 2008, he has also been the recipient of numerous other awards including the Hubbard Award from the National Board of Medical Examiners in 1989, the Award of Excellence of the Canadian Association for Medical Education and the Award for Outstanding Achievement of the Medical Council of Canada. 

Dr Norcini spent 25 years with the American Board of Internal Medicine serving as Director of Psychometrics, Executive Vice President for Evaluation and Research, and Executive Vice President of the Institute for Clinical Evaluation. From 2002 until 2019 he was President and CEO of FAIMER, the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research where he established numerous worldwide initiatives and programs in medical education, research, and data resource development. In 2009, he received the National Board of Medical Examiners (NBME) John P. Hubbard Award for his commitment to excellence in medical education, his rigorous pursuit of high standards in scholarship, his broad and prolific publications and presentations history, and his tireless work on behalf of FAIMER. Dr. Norcini’s accomplishments in the field of assessment are considered both wide-ranging and pioneering. He was awarded the Karolinska Prize in 2014 for his important contribution to research in medical education, especially his pioneering research on knowledge decay, speciality certification and the development of new methods of assessment.   

Dr Cees van der Vleuten, PhD, has been at the University of Maastricht since 1982. In 1996 he was appointed Professor of Education and chair of the Department of Educational Development and Research in the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, a position he held for 18 years. From 2005 until 2020 he was the Scientific Director of the School of Health Professions Education. His successor is KIPRIME fellow and previous guest in this series, Dr Pim Teunissen.He mentors many researchers in medical education and has supervised more than 90 doctoral graduate students. His primary expertise lies in evaluation and assessment. He has published widely in this domain, holds numerous academic awards, including several career awards. In 2005 he received John P. Hubbard Award for significant contribution to research and development of assessment of medical competence from the National Board of Medical Examiners in the US. In 2010 he received a Dutch royal decoration for the societal impact of his work and in 2012 the Karolinska Prize for Research in Medical Education. Cees serves frequently as a consultant internationally and holds numerous honorary academic appointments around the world.