Lorelei Lingard is awarded the Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education
Professor Lorelei Lingard is awarded the 2018 Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education. Her research has contributed significantly to our understanding of how healthcare professionals interact and communicate with each other, which has led to new clinical practices and increased patient safety.
Professor Lingard, Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry and cross-appointed in the Faculty of Education at Western University in Canada, will receive the award and a prize amount of €50,000 at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on 11 October.
This international prize is awarded for outstanding research in medical education. The purpose of the prize is to recognise and stimulate high-quality research in the field and to promote long-term improvements of educational practices in medical training. "Medical" includes all education and training for any health science profession. The prize is made possible through financial support from the Gunnar Höglund and Anna-Stina Malmborg Foundation. It is currently awarded every second year.
“I’m happy to announce Professor Lingard as this year’s prize winner. She has contributed significantly to our understanding of how healthcare teams interact and communicate. Her research has been a major force in changing the way medical education views teamwork and has led to new clinical practices and increased patient safety,” says Professor Sari Ponzer, Chair of the Prize Committee.
Since the late 1990s, Professor Lingard has been studying how healthcare teams function – both in providing patient care and during clinical training. She and her research team have studied expert and novice team members in settings as diverse as the operating room, the critical care unit, the heart function clinic, the organ transplantation team, the rehabilitation hospital, and the inpatient medicine ward.
“My entry point into teamwork is always language. I’m interested in how teams communicate, because their communication is fundamental to how they collaborate and how they educate. My disciplinary training is in rhetoric – the study of how language works in social situations. Applying rhetoric to healthcare, I have worked to unravel what language does on teams. My research asks: what does language make possible in a team, and what does it constrain? As it turns out, language does many things that are critical for medical education and for care delivery. As a consequence of my research, we now pay systematic and critical attention to how clinical team members communicate with each other,” says Professor Lingard.
Her research has helped shape medical education policy in her native Canada as well as internationally. As a result, the role of language is today emphasised in clinical training, which was not previously the case. Her research has also inspired the recognition that teamwork is essential to how trainees learn. As clinical teams are the setting for most workplace-based learning in medicine, their structures and practices have a profound influence on that learning. Just a few decades ago, teamwork was not seen as important within medical education but today, thanks to Professor Lingard’s collaborative research programme, it’s recognised as a critically important aspect of what and how medical trainees learn.
Commenting on her Prize win, Professor Lingard says:
“I’m deeply honoured to be recognised for this prize. Professionally, it’s a huge recognition of the work that I do together with my wonderful collaborative research teams, and the impact it has had. The field of team communication research didn’t exist 20 years ago and I’m enormously proud to have contributed to its development in our medical education community. From a more personal perspective, I’m very proud to be the first woman to win this prestigious prize.”
Background information:
Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education
This international prize is awarded for outstanding research in medical education. The purpose of the prize is to recognise and stimulate high-quality research in the field and to promote long-term improvements of educational practices in medical training. “Medical” includes all education and training for any health science profession. The prize is made possible through financial support from the Gunnar Höglund and Anna-Stina Malmborg Foundation. It is currently awarded every second year.
The 2018 Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education will be awarded to Lorelei Lingard, Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and cross-appointed in the Faculty of Education, at Western University in London, Ontario in Canada. She will receive the award at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden, on 11 October.
Previous winners:
2016
Professor Brian Hodges, University of Toronto, Canada
2014
Professor John Norcini, Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research (FAIMER), United States
2012
Professor Cees van der Vleuten, Maastricht University, the Netherlands
2010
Professor David Irby, University of California, United States
Professor Richard Reznick, Queen’s University, Canada
2008
Professor Geoffrey Norman, McMaster University, Canada
2006
Professor Ronald Harden, University of Dundee, United Kingdom
2004
Professor Henk Schmidt, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands
Lorelei Lingard
Lorelei Lingard, Ph.D., born 1968, is Professor in the Department of Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, and cross-appointed in the Faculty of Education, at Western University in London, Ontario in Canada.
She earned her PhD in English/Rhetoric from Simon Fraser University in Canada and has since focused her career on studying how healthcare professionals communicate in their daily interactions with patients, colleagues and trainees.
Professor Lingard has spent more than 20 years studying how healthcare teams function – both in providing care and during clinical training. She has studied expert and novice team members in settings as diverse as the operating room, the critical care unit, the heart function clinic, the organ transplantation team, the rehabilitation hospital, and the inpatient medicine ward.
Her research has resulted in the widespread understanding that teamwork is a core part of what needs to be learned within the field of medicine. Teamwork is a competency that needs to be thoroughly understood, explicitly developed and assessed in trainees, and consistently improved through continuing medical education. Teamwork is also a key non-technical skill that form the basic building blocks of safe patient care, alongside leadership, situational awareness and communication.
Her research has also inspired the recognition that teamwork is essential to how trainees learn. Clinical teams are the setting for most workplace-based learning in medicine, and their structures and practices profoundly influence that learning. Just a few decades ago, teamwork was not recognised as particularly important within medical education. Today, thanks in large part to Professor Lingard’s collaborative research programme, it’s recognised as a critically important aspect of what and how medical trainees learn.
Professor Lingard is also the founding director and senior scientist at the Centre for Education Research & Innovation at Western University (CERI). She is regularly invited to lecture on medical education and methods internationally. She has also published some 205 articles in scientific publications and in 2012, she delivered a TEDxTalk.
More information about the Prize and the Prize recipient:
For further information, contact:
Professor Sari Ponzer
Chair of the Prize Committee
Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education
Tel: +46 (0)8 616 23 46 or +46 (0)73 973 26 89
Email: sari.ponzer@ki.se
Associate Professor Italo Masiello
Scientific Secretary of the Prize Committee
Karolinska Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education
Tel: +46 (0)76 052 80 27
Email: italo.masiello@ki.se
Karolinska Institutet press office
Tel: +46 (0)8 524 860 77
Email: pressinfo@ki.se
Karolinska Institutet is one of the world’s leading medical universities. Its mission is to contribute to the improvement of human health through research and education. Karolinska Institutet accounts for over 40 per cent of the medical academic research conducted in Sweden, and offers the country’s broadest range of education in medicine and health sciences. Since 1901 the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has selected the Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine.
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