Anna Kiessling

I am a professor in medical education and a specialist in cardiology and internal medicine. I hold a position as a professor in medical education with emphasis on clinical educational sciences. I have been a member of the Pedagogy Academy at KI since 2012.

Chair of the Curriculum Committee and Project Leader for the implementation of the new six-year medical programme at KI.
Academic leader for the coordination of the Coherent Quality Assurance System at the KI level and external quality evaluations since 2018.
Chair of the Prize Committee of Karolinska Institutet Prize in Medical Education Research (KIPRIME) since 2025.
Chair of the Committee for Prevention and Public Health in the Swedish Society of Medicine since 2018 and since 2015 senior project leader for the Lifestyle project [Levnadsvaneprojektet], run by the Swedish Society of Medicine. A national project on behalf of the National Board of Health and Welfare [Socialstyrelsen] to implement the National Guidelines on prevention and treatment of unhealthy lifestyle.
I supervise several Ph.D. students, including those in medical education research with a focus on professional development, interprofessional learning, and clinical decision making.

Education
Associate professor, Docent in Cardiology 2015
PhD in Internal Medicine at KI 2005.
National Cardiology Diploma as a specialist in Cardiology, 1993
National Medicine Diploma as a specialist in Internal Medicine, 1991
Medical licensure, Sweden 1986
Degree of Master of Science in Medicin, e 1982

Academic honors, awards, and prizes
Awarded the KI Prize in Pedagogy 2019.
Awarded as Fellow of the Karolinska Institutet Pedagogy Academy for excellence in pedagogy, continuous development, and contribution to high-quality teaching at KI 2012
Teacher representative in the Consultative College [Nomineringsförsamlingen] at KI.
Chair of the National Working Group for Cardiovascular Prevention and Lifestyle, appointed by the Swedish Society of Cardiology 2012-2022.
Expert on the Advisory Board of WHO-CC Clinical Health Promotion Centre.
Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology (FESC) is an internationally recognized, prestigious position, confirmed by the FESC diploma, for excellent clinical cardiologists and cardiovascular scientists with a deep interest in and knowledge of cardiovascular medicine.
Recognized as the National Cardiovascular Prevention Coordinator of Sweden (NCPC Sweden) by the European Association for Preventive Cardiology (EAPC), a working group of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) 2013-2021.

I am PI for the Clinical Education and Implementation Research Group at KI. My research activities follow two main routes:

1) Cardiovascular prevention and implementation of support towards a healthier lifestyle and patients’ decision-making when afflicted by an acute myocardial infarction, concerning patient delay.

2) Medical Education Research with a focus on professional development and learning from novice to expert level, with emphasis on clinical decision-making, threshold concepts, and how to apply evidence-based practice in routine care.

The central aim is to understand the complexity of learning decision-making, prevention, and disease. We employ classical and novel methodology, including randomized controlled quantitative studies, questionnaire studies, qualitative and mixed methods, as well as megavariate statistics: Projection to Latent Structures (PLS).

I have extensive teaching experience for students, mostly in the medical program, for doctoral students, and in continuing education and patient education. I have over twenty years of networking leadership assignments in the Stockholm County Council and at KI, and more than 16 weeks of formal teaching qualification merits.

Three of my Ph.D. students defended their theses in 2014, 2016, and 2022 with projects in medical education.

Some project examples:
• A randomized controlled educational intervention study with case methodology for primary care physicians. We showed significant cost-effectiveness of the intervention and significantly reduced mortality in patients.
• Developed an elective course in Clinical reasoning, including a recurrent structured reflection on how to make wise decisions and why.
• An ethnographic research study of the learning environment and student interaction at an acute internal medicine care unit.

2015-2022 Chair of the Pedagogy Review Group of the Recruitment Committee at KI, grading teaching qualifications for applying senior lecturers and professors.

I was the project manager for the development of the Centre for Clinical Education (CKU) and Director of CKU until 2012. CKU aimed to bridge the gap in the management and development of teaching and learning at the university and in the health care system in the region. I also participated in the managerial work with the development, implementation, and evaluation of the new medical program at KI, and from 2006-2010, I was a member of the program committee.