Karin Bouma

I am a Licensed Biomedical Scientist, PhD and assistant senior lecturer that is passionate about teaching and develop tomorrow's health care professionals. I worked 20 years as a Biomedical Scientist within Clinical Physiology at different clinics and I'm still clinically active at ME Klinisk Fysiologi, Karolinska University Hospital. I am specifically interested in collaborative organisational educational questions that can enhance and improve our educational programs. My reasearch field, cardiac imaging techniques, is closely correlated to my teaching, with a specialisation within cardiac ultrasound imaging (echocardiography) and cardiac magnetic resonance.

An overarching theme of my past and planned long-term research is to improve cardiac imaging diagnostics to ensure that patients with cardiovascular disease receive appropriate treatment. In my PhD thesis, I focused on the assessment of cardiovascular physiological changes in health and disease affecting the right heart using echocardiography. Since then, I've focused my research field around 2 main topics:

1) Develop echocardiographic reference values to better understand the structure and function of the heart for people above 80 years old. This project will yield novel insights into changes and remodeling of the aging heart. It is of great importance to understand the natural aging process of the heart to differentiate it from heart disease since cardiovascular disease is one of the most common health problems in the western world today. 

2) Improve diagnostic accuracy when assessing left ventricular systolic function with echocardiography and MRI, to ensure a more reliable diagnosis and treatment for patients with heart disease. 

I am deeply involved in the study program in Biomedical Laboratory Science (both Bachelor's and Master's level) were I served as assistant program director during 2018-2023 as well as being a member of the educational board at the Institution of Laboratory Medicin. Today I am course coordinator and examiner for several courses in both Bachelor's and Master's program, but I also have wider educational responsibilities, including being a member of the Education Advisory Committee.