People | Centre for Healthcare Education Research and Innovation

People

We are the largest and most prolific healthcare education research group in the UK, and our people are internationally-recognised for their scholarly activities.

Director

Dr Anita Laidlaw

Anita has been involved in healthcare education for many years including teaching medical students, dental nurses, and health psychology students. Following postdoctoral research, she became an education focused academic and has developed and run accredited training, with a focus on behavioural science, clinical communication, and research skills.

She has always been curious about students and teaching, and this led her to conduct educational research, both in healthcare and higher education. From previously holding leadership positions in the past, she has always enjoyed supporting others to develop their careers and this has given her a particular interest in supporting others to engage in high quality educational research.

Her current position as Director of CHERI also allows her to support others in educational research.

Contact: anita.laidlaw@abdn.ac.uk

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Academic Staff

Dr Kim Walker

Kim is a Senior Lecturer with responsibility for faculty development including pedagogic research. She has significant experience in quantitative and qualitative research including the use of big data and population studies. Her main areas of research are career choice and decision making, widening access, physician associates, faculty development and doctors' wellbeing.

Contact: kim.walker@abdn.ac.uk

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Dr Helen Vosper

Helen is Chartered ergonomist (Human Factors specialist) and is a Senior Lecturer and the lead for patient safety. Helen believes that Human Factors has much to offer healthcare curriculum content, facilitating learner development of practical competencies that can be applied in the workplace to optimise health and care system outcomes, including staff and patient safety.

Contact: helen.vosper@abdn.ac.uk

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Professor Amudha Poobalan

Amudha is a Professor of Public Health Education and holds the status of Principal Fellow of AdvanceHE (PFHEA). She is the academic lead for the Postgraduate Taught Masters programmes for the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition. Her research interests are student support to enhance engagement and learning; social accountability of education; and sustainable education in resource-limited settings.

Contact: a.poobalan@abdn.ac.uk

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Dr Eve Brock

Eve is a Medical Education Lecturer with a background in adult nursing. She has worked in a clinical education role since 2011 and graduated in 2020 from the University of Aberdeen with a PhD in Medical Education. Her research explores professional identity development and associated emotions in healthcare education students and newly-graduated doctors. Eve is co-programme coordinator for MSc Medical Education .

Contact: evangeline.brock@abdn.ac.uk

Dr Katie Gibson Smith

Katie is Senior Lecturer. Her research focusses on equality, diversity and inclusion in medical education (e.g., widening participation, disability), and implementation and evaluation of interventions. She is course coordinator for Fundamentals of Data Management and Analysis which forms part of the MSc Clinical Education.

Contact: kathrine.gibson.smith@abdn.ac.uk

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Dr Haci Bayram Yilmaz

Bayram is a Lecturer in Psychometrics. He supports psychometric analyses of summative and large-scale formative assessments in the MBChB programme, including the selection process. Additionally, he contributes to psychometric analyses across other programmes within the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences & Nutrition. His research interests focus on programme evaluation, measurement, and assessment, with a particular emphasis on multilevel modelling and scale development.

Contact: haci.yilmaz@abdn.ac.uk

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Researchers

Dr Ergun Kara

Role: Research Fellow, University of Aberdeen (CHERI)

Dr Ergün Kara is a Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen's Centre for Healthcare Education Research and Innovation (CHERI), working on the NIHR-funded UKMED project. His research applies network psychometrics, classical and Bayesian multilevel modelling, and longitudinal analysis to medical workforce careers, adolescent mental health, and educational systems.

In psychological counselling, he specialises in adolescent mental health, cognitive-behavioural approaches, and scale development for clinical and educational contexts.

In applied AI, he develops LLM-assisted research pipelines and agentic workflows for academic work.

Contact: ergun.kara@abdn.ac.uk

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Dr Damla Harmanci (she/her)

Damla is a postdoctoral researcher. She is currently working as a research fellow on an NIHR-funded project exploring the work and career progression experiences of doctors with disabilities in the NHS using an institutional ethnography (IE) approach. Her research focuses on health inequalities, health and care service delivery and accessibility, qualitative research methods, participatory and co‑production approaches, and medical sociology.

Contact: damla.harmanci@abdn.ac.uk

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PhD Candidates

Florin Nedelea

Florin joined CHERI in May of 2021 as a Faculty Development Support Officer. His work is to promote, to assist and to support the development of teaching and learning activities designed and delivered by faculty in the MBChB clinical curriculum. He is working on implementing the staff development strategy which encompasses provisions and training of University of Aberdeen and key NHS partners. Prior to joining CHERI, Florin was an eLearning Adviser within the Centre for Academic Development at the University of Aberdeen.

Contact: florin.nedelea@abdn.ac.uk

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Lauren Charter

Lauren is a second year PhD Candidate in CHERI. Her research aims to map and understand the decision-making behind current rural and remote placement provision at all Scottish medical programmes. She is using longitudinal qualitative methods to explore the multiple transitions medical students experience while on rural and remote placements, and what aspects of placement experiences influence students’ future career intentions to practice rurally.

Contact: l.charter.23@abdn.ac.uk

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Associates

Professor Peter Johnston

Professor Peter Johnston is the Depute Postgraduate Dean (Scotland Deanery, North Region) and a Consultant Histopathologist (NHS Grampian), UK.

Contact: peter.johnston@abdn.ac.uk

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Professor Jen Cleland

Professor Jennifer Cleland was the Director of CHERI until 2020 and the John Simpson Chair of Medical Education Research. She is an Honorary Professor at University of Aberdeen and continues to support CHERI. A clinical and occupational psychologist by training, for many years she split her time working in the UK National Health Service (latterly in Liaison Psychiatry), while holding university roles within the University of Aberdeen School of Medicine, Dentistry and Nutrition.

Contact: jen.cleland@abdn.ac.uk

Dr Kirsty Alexander

Kirsty was awarded her PhD in 2018 for a thesis entitled 'Perceptions, discourses and values: exploring how key stakeholders construct, negotiate and enact widening access to medical school'.

Contact: KAlexander001@dundee.ac.uk

PhD Graduates

Dr Maeve Coyle

Maeve's research uses qualitative methods to explore widening access to medical education in both the UK and Australia. Her PhD programme is part of an alliance between the University of Aberdeen and Curtin University in Perth, Australia, where she will be spending a year of her studies.

Contact: r03mc18@abdn.ac.uk

Dr Ben Kumwenda

Ben recently completed his PhD. His research examined the relationships between socio-demographic variables and progression within medical education and training.

Contact: b.kumwenda@dundee.ac.uk

Dr Gillian Scanlan

Gillian graduated with a PhD in 2019, for a thesis entitled 'Understanding the Factors that Influence the Career Decision Making of UK Foundation Doctors'. Her research focused on medical careers decision making in Foundation Programme doctors.

Dr Sanne Schreurs

Sanne recently completed her PhD. Her research examined the relationships between socio-demographic variables and progression within medical education.

Dr Duncan Scrimgeour

Duncan is an Honorary Lecturer and Intercollegiate Research Fellow, Specialty Trainee in General Surgery. He graduated with a PhD in Medical Education from CHERI, for a thesis entitled 'Predicting performance in UK surgical training'.

Dr Adarsh Shah

Adarsh is using a mixed methods approach to undertake a national evaluation of Scotland's Improving Surgical Training Programme pilot. The focus of his research is on curricular reform and educational change. It aims to utilise theories outside of medical education and medical humanities to provide new perspectives. This work has been supported by a grant from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Contact: a.shah.19@abdn.ac.uk

Dr Fatemah Aldousari

Fatimah was awarded her PhD in 2020. Her mixed-methods programme of quality improvement research focused on prevalence, predictors of, and reasons for, discharges against medical advice in government hospitals in Kuwait. The ultimate aim of her research was to develop and evaluate a pilot intervention to reduce DAMA.

Contact: r02fasa@abdn.ac.uk

Dr Waleed Alharbi

Waleed graduated with a PhD in 2019, for a thesis entitled 'A mixed-methods study identifying and exploring ways to address medication error in an adult oncology

Dr Hamad Alqattan

Hamad was awarded his PhD in 2020. His mixed-methods programme of quality improvement research focused on identifying patient safety culture predictors and outcomes in a tertiary-care medical department, Kuwait. The ultimate aim of his research was to develop and evaluate a pilot intervention to improve patient safety.

Contact: r01haha@abdn.ac.uk

Dr Vivienne Blackhall

Viv completed her PhD in February 2020. The titles of her MD projects were: iView expert. Adapting a method from human space flight, civil and military aviation, to explicate medical expertise in complex tasks, for transfer to trainees and Evaluating a take home laparoscopic deliberate practice programme for core surgical trainees.

Jialing Ma

Contact: jialing.ma2@abdn.ac.uk

Jane Smith

Jane Smith graduated from Glasgow University in 1998 with Commendation. She then spent eight years in Private and NHS dental practice. The next ten years she spent working with the Community and Public Dental Services in NHS Grampian, she is currently still doing this work part time. Four years ago, she came to Aberdeen Dental School where she is now a Clinical Lecturer.

She has recently become a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and recently completed the Post Graduate Certificate in Clinical Education.

Contact: janesmith@abdn.ac.uk

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Leen Habboub

Leen joined CHERI as a PhD student in 2023. Her research focuses on understanding and exploring the translation process of the theoretical knowledge of tooth morphology into practical skills among dental students. While she was working as a dentist, her passion for dental education grew, inspiring her to pursue research in this field. Her research aims to provide valuable insights and recommendations to improve dental curricula, ultimately contributing to developing highly skilled dental graduates and enhancing patient care.

Contact: l.habboub.22@abdn.ac.uk

Institute Administration

Lau, Eduardo (He/Him)

Institute Administration Coordinator, Medical Education. Biography coming soon.

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