They are the first recipients of the KIPRIME Research Grant

What is needed to enable resident physicians to learn from their mistakes rather than becoming trapped in feelings of guilt and shame? And why does further training in psychiatric care rarely lead to better patient outcomes? The first grants from the KIPRIME Research Grant are enhancing research in areas where funding has long been limited.

The KIPRIME Research Grant initiative is being launched in collaboration with the Gunnar Höglund and Anna-Stina Malmborg Foundation and aims to boost research funding in the field of medical education.

“Medical education sits somewhat in a grey area between medical research and educational research. That is why we find it difficult to fit into calls for proposals that focus on purely educational approaches or purely medical ones,” says Sven Alfonsson, psychologist, psychotherapist and docent at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience.

He and Agnes Elmberger, a resident physician in anaesthesia and intensive care and a researcher at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, are the first recipients of the KIPRIME grant.

Unlike other educational initiatives at Karolinska Institutet, the KIPRIME Research Grant is open to research at all levels of education and across all professions within the entire field of medical education. From campus-based teaching to clinical training, specialist training and continuing professional development.

Seeking ways to overcome the education paradox

Sven Alfonsson’s project aims to investigate the so-called educational paradox in psychiatric care: the fact that traditional continuous education rarely leads to better patient outcomes. Even though individual clinicians’ skills improve, this is not reflected in the organisation’s performance.

– The paradox has led to further training being called into question, which is unfortunate. We will now investigate why it is difficult to put training into practice. The hope is to lay the foundations for a training model that can provide better individual support to each participant, he says.

Agnes Elmberger’s project also centres on learning in everyday healthcare. Her research will map how physicins in specialist training handle and learn from their mistakes, with a particular focus on social and cultural factors in the workplace.

– “This will be my first major grant of my own, and it means a great deal to me to be able to launch my own project. The grant can bring my research and clinical work closer together,” says Agnes Elmberger.

Demands on performance can hinder learning from mistakes

Resident doctors find themselves in a unique situation where training and continuous assessment take place in parallel. This can create a performance-oriented culture where it is difficult to speak openly about one’s mistakes. 

Through interview studies, she aims to gain a better understanding of, among other things, who physicians turn to when something goes wrong, whom they avoid talking to, and how the work team can better support learning and development.

“All of us in healthcare make mistakes; it’s inevitable. The important thing is that the mistake is linked to learning rather than blame and shame,” says Agnes Elmberger.

The KIPRIME Research Grant is the result of a collaboration between KI and the Gunnar Höglund and Anna-Stina Malmborg Foundation. The foundation funds Karolinska Institutet’s international prize for research in medical education, KIPRIME, and KIPRIME Fellows, together with Karolinska Institutet.

– There is very little research funding available in medical education, and the grants that do exist are often niche, says Terese Stenfors at the Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics and the Unit for Teaching and Learning.

Terese Stenfors is leading the three-year initiative together with Anna Kiessling and Maria Watter. KIPRIME also includes a visiting professorship and funding for a research network at Karolinska Institutet.