Brian D. Hodges, MD, PhD, University of Toronto
Like Abraham Flexner, Brian D. Hodges, MD, PhD, has stimulated an international medical education metamorphosis to prepare the next generation of physicians for the rapidly changing future. By challenging the very notion of competence and its assessment in his roles as educator, scholar, and administrator, his ideas have explored, tested, and transformed the boundaries of medical education scholarship and practice.
Dr. Hodges, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, was instrumental in projects that redefined competence for future physicians. He was a major contributor to the Educating Future Physicians for Ontario project and its successor, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada CanMEDS framework. Seeing competence-based education rapidly become the global standard, Dr. Hodges has challenged educators around the world to think about education and assessment in new ways. In 2010, Dr. Hodges led a national environmental study for The Future of Medical Education in Canada, a project aimed at reshaping medical schools a century after Flexner’s landmark report.
Dr. Hodges’ research has been cited more than 4,400 times in 10 languages. He has consulted with test committees and medical schools in countries as diverse as China, Switzerland, Australia, and Kuwait. He served on the founding board of the National School of Public Health in France and teaches at the University of Paris. In Ethiopia, he provides oversight to the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration, University of Toronto’s largest international project. This June, he helped establish the first Master of Health Professions Education program in Ethiopia.
From 2003 to 2011, Dr. Hodges was director of the Donald R. Wilson Centre for Research in Health Professions Education. During that time, the Wilson Centre established significant endowments, including the Currie Fellowship, and became a magnet for international scholars. Dr. Hodges was named the Richard and Elizabeth Currie Chair in Health Professions Education Research in 2009. In 2010, he was appointed vice president, education, at one of Canada’s largest hospital systems, the University Health Network.
Since 2011, Dr. Hodges has led the Associated Medical Services (AMS) Phoenix Project, a charitable initiative that aims to nurture and sustain compassionate health care—something aligned with his personal disposition. Dr. Hodges is noted by many as “a person of tremendous character, integrity, and generosity,” says David Hirsh, MD, director, Harvard Medical School–Cambridge Integrated Clerkship.
Dr. Hodges has been honored many times for his contributions to medical education, having received awards in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, including the 3M Award for Teaching, Canada’s highest award for university teaching.
Dr. Hodges received his BA and MD from Queen’s University at Kingston in Ontario. He completed a psychiatry residency at the University of Toronto, where he later earned his PhD in higher education.