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.

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.