UBC’s Dr. Glenn Regehr has been awarded the 2020 Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education (KIPRIME), becoming the tenth recipient of the prestigious international prize.
The award recognizes outstanding research in medical education, helping to promote long-term improvements in education and training in the health professions.
Dr. Glenn Regehr
“I feel deeply honoured,” said Dr. Regehr, a professor in the department of surgery, and associate director of the faculty of medicine’s Centre for Health Education Scholarship (CHES). “I’m also proud to have my name alongside the other individuals who have won the award in the past. I will say, I honestly don’t really see it as an individual award for me, as much as anything else it’s a nod to the culture of supporting collaboration and interaction that we have in the field.”
Over the course of his career, Dr. Regehr has worked to improve bench-to-bedside practices through his research on a broad range of topics, from exposing the learner experience of educational interventions and its implications for developing effective school curricula, to improving self-assessment for clinicians and its implications for health professional regulatory bodies to develop effective self-regulation processes.
More than a decade ago, Dr. Regehr joined the late Dr. Joanna Bates in working to establish CHES at UBC along with Dr. Kevin Eva, a professor in UBC’s department of medicine.
“Our goal was to create a culture where clinician educators on the ground were supported with collaborative resources to help them on a day-to-day basis in their efforts at innovation and scholarship,” said Dr. Regehr. “We want to ensure that we are equally advancing both theory and practice.”
Dr. Regehr has greatly contributed to a broader academic understanding of medical education.
”His innovations and work, especially with qualitative methods have had a great impact on the field of educational research,” said Dr. Sari Ponzer, a professor at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and chair of the prize committee. “He has also provided outstanding support and guidance to junior researchers. He’s certainly a very worthy prize winner.”
Dr. Regehr´s main research impact has been in conceptualizing methodology and its relationship to theory, a groundwork for significant research activity. He has also introduced a variety of methodological innovations, drawing heavily on work done outside of the health professions.
“My goal is always to look for opportunities to continue the spirit of building community and supporting junior colleagues and developing that broad culture of collaboration.”
Dr. Glenn Regehr
“My approach has been to bring a lens to a number of research domains rather than focus on one specific content area,” he said. “My goal is always to look for opportunities to continue the spirit of building community and supporting junior colleagues and developing that broad culture of collaboration.”
Dr. Regehr will receive the award and a prize amount of €75,000 in Stockholm in October 2020, if travel allows. The award is currently awarded every second year.
A version of this story originally appeared on the Karolinska Institutet website.