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 University

Before 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.