Published: 28-11-2024 13:28 | Updated: 29-11-2024 18:37

Former KIPRIME prize-winner Brian Hodges: “Empathy is crucial to a medical education”

Annika Östman Wernerson and Brian Hodges
Annika Östman Wernerson and Brian Hodges in Stockholm in October 2024. Photo: Josefine Lindberg

Karolinska Institutet was honoured in October by a visit from Professor Brian Hodges, the 2016 KIPRIME recipient. The award, which is given in recognition of achievements in medical education research, has been of profound significance to him, and now he was in Sweden to open next year’s KIPRIME Fellows, an initiative devised to cultivate the next generation of prize-winners.

Professor Brian Hodges from the University of Toronto, Canada, was awarded the Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education (KIPRIME) in 2016 for his research on communication skills and empathy in medical education.

Professor Hodges frequently visits the university, and this time it was to speak at the education congress and to begin work on next year’s KIPRIME Fellows to cultivate the next generation of KIPRIME prize-winners.

Nurturing future prize-winners

Brian Hodges is heading up the initiative with fellow recipient of the biennial KIPRIME award from 2018 Professor Lorelei Lingard. 

However, as is the case in many other research fields, there are a few over-represented research institutes from around the world among KIPRIME recipients, a circumstance that KIPRIME Fellows hopes to change.

Brian Hodges. Photo: Christopher Hunt
Brian Hodges. Photo: Christopher Hunt

“KIPRIME Fellows was set up to expand the research field and bring together international colleagues for a week long programme of activities every other year,” says Professor Hodges. “The programme has many outstanding participants who I’m confident will one day win the prize, and they come from all over the world.”

This is an important initiative, asserts KI president Annika Östman Wernerson:

Personer KI:s universitetsledning
Annika Östman Wernerson. Photo: Liza Simonsson

“Our PRIME prize-winners play a crucial role in driving developments in medical education research,” she says. “It’s all about dealing with patients and having a solid basis on which to do so with empathy and sustainably. A basis that the education we provide must equip our students with.”

In her own education research, Professor Östman Wernerson is looking at how emotionally distressing situations affect the learning process for students of medicine and teaching on placements. She and her group are also researching how supervisors can promote learning in such situations. 

“We aim to improve the students’ education with a focus on professional development to better prepare them for overcoming the challenges they’ll be facing in their future careers,” she says.

Education plays a key role

Brian Hodges says that being a KIPRIME recipient has had a profound effect on his career. Not only does he have an impressive resumé as Professor at University of Toronto’s Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Executive Vice President, Education and Chief Medical Officer at Toronto’s University Health Network, he is also chair of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, a practising psychiatrist, teacher and member of the KIPRIME awards committee.

“It’s an important, prestigious prize,” says Professor Hodges. “Being recognised in this way by Karolinska Institutet has opened many doors for me, and I’ve been invited to lead numerous initiatives, such as KIPRIME Fellows. The spotlight has also given me a platform from which to proclaim the significance of medical education as a research field.”

Medical education is crucial, he points out, in the way it converts research findings into clinical practice.

“Historically speaking, there’s been a considerable lag, up to 15 years, before major research breakthroughs get implemented in healthcare,” he continues. “Education is the key to ensuring that knowledge is put to practical use. Without a robust educational framework, even the best scientific research will be left on the shelf.”

Human contact is crucial to healing

After having received the KIPRIME award for his research on communication skills and empathy in medical education, Professor Hodges focused initially on integrating these qualities into the examination of medical students in Canada. 

“Empathy is essential in medical education and has an immediate impact on healthcare practice and outcomes,” he says. “Without it, healthcare is merely technical and we lose the human contact that is so crucial to healing. My goal is to make sure that the doctors of tomorrow are not only technically skilled practitioners but also empathetic communicators able to comprehend their patients’ emotional needs.”

Over the years, Brian Hodges’s research focus has widened to studying the impact of technology on healthcare, especially in terms of the way doctors communicate with each other and with their patients. One arm of his research concerns how empathy can be integrated into the use of AI and virtual care and education.

“Properly used, the technology enhances communication and empathy,” Professor Hodges says. “However, I’m also deeply concerned that the increase in burnout and loss of collegial relations and contact between doctor and patient is a direct result of too much reliance on, and the inappropriate use of technology, especially during the pandemic.” 

Text: Karin Tideström