Mindfulness in Medical Education
I have had the privilege of working as a Teacher Educator in Higher Education for over 18 years, spanning both Post-Compulsory and Medical Education (the latter for almost 14 years). Alongside these roles, I have designed and delivered a wide range of mindfulness-based programmes and initiatives.
During my time at Newcastle University, I introduced the 8-Week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course for staff and students, and facilitated numerous drop-in sessions and workshops. I have led wellbeing workshops with Dr Zoe Williams (GP on Good Morning Britain and former Gladiator), and hosted webinars with Dr Kathryn Mannix (TED speaker and author of Listen), and Professor Ron Epstein (author of Attending and US-based physician). I also developed and led an undergraduate module on Transpersonal Psychology and Mindfulness for third-year undergraduate students, and helped initiate a study that supported the BAMBA accreditation of MindfulnessUK’s Compassionate Mindful Resilience 4-week programme.
I am currently a full-time Senior Lecturer in Medical Education at the University of Sunderland’s School of Medicine, where I help lead the Master of Medical Education programme, chair the university’s annual Medical Education Conference, and lecture on mindfulness for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.
At the national level, I serve as Co-Chair of the Mindfulness in Medical Education (MiME) Special Interest Groupfor the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME), working to advance mindfulness scholarship in medical education. I also peer-review mindfulness-related research for journals including Mindfulness, Healthcare, and International Medical Education.
My current writing projects include articles exploring physician self-care and the relationship between mindfulness and anatomical functioning.
You can find more detail below about my work in Higher Education.
ASME’s Mindfulness in Medical Education Special Interest Group (MiME)
I have worked as Co-Chair of the MiME Special Interest Group for around 7 years. The aim of this group is to ‘raise awareness of the contribution mindfulness can make as an evidence-based discipline to healthcare and healthcare education through the promotion of dialogue, sharing of good practice, and networking. The SIG also aims to support its members to undertake and disseminate high quality mindfulness-related scholarship.’ (MiME website)
Over the years we have hosted a number of events including events such as:
Mindfulness in Medial Education Conference in 2022
A webinar with Dr Kathryn Mannix on Mindful Listening
ASME Bitesize event on Preventing Burnout in Healthcare Education
ASME Megabite event with Prof. Ron Epstein, author of ‘Attending’
ASME Megabite with Karen Atkinson (Mindfulness UK) - Nov 2024
Mindfulness Workshops at ASME’s Annual Scholarship Conference.
We have also published the following:
Conference Proceedings Special Issue for the journal Clinical Teacher
Written pieces and cartoons for World Kindness Day 2022
We have a number of new events in the pipeline. Find out more about MiME here
Higher Education
Over the past 12 or so years I have introduced mindfulness into my Higher Education roles. Currently, as a Senior Lecturer in Medical Education at the University of Sunderland, I lecture on mindfulness twice a year to year 1 and year 2 medical students. I also contribute to a workshop on complementary medicine for year 2 students.
My main role at the university is on the Master in Medical Education programme. Here I introduce mindfulness into two modules focusing mainly on how to maintain self-care through mindfulness practice.
As Chair of the School of Medicine’s annual Medical Education conference, I help promote collaboration and research around key themes. Conference themes so far have included the medical humanities and education for preventative healthcare.
In my previous role at Newcastle University, I created an extensive role in bringing mindfulness to students and staff across the university. I delivered multiple 8-week Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course to staff and students, developed and led a new module for 3rd year Psychology students entitled, ‘Transpersonal Psychology: Mindfulness and Psychological Wellbeing’, led regular drop-in sessions for staff and students, and led a mindfulness Student Selected Component (SSC) for medical students with Dr Lucy Harrison.
Publications & Presentations
My publications and presentations have been wide-ranging over the years, and I list them here in chronological order. Much of my scholarly activity, whether a talk, conference presentation, workshop, podcast, or publication, has orientated around the themes of mindfulness, teacher education, and medical education. I am currently working on a number of mindfulness-related articles and a large project on mindfulness-based whole healthcare system design.
2025
Williams, L., Trebacz, A. Atkinson, M. & Tiplady, C. (2025) Exploring the Barriers to Clinical Reasoning in High-Fidelity Simulation for Undergraduate Medical Students: A Phenomenological Study. Simulation in Healthcare: The Journal of the Society for Simulation in Healthcare. Link.
July: Maintaining our humanity in an age of AI: A Mindfulness Approach Workshop at ASME's Annual Scientific Meeting, Edinburgh.
Chaired the third annual Medical Education conference at the University of Sunderland via my role as Senior Lecturer in Medical Education, entitled, ‘Shifting the Paradigm: Educating for Preventative Healthcare in a Rapidly Changing World’. . Link.
May: Chair of ASME Webinar with Professor Ron Epstein, author of the book, ‘Attending’ entitled, ‘Reclaiming your Identity as a Healer: Mindful Practice in Troubling Times’. Link.
2024
February: Atkinson, M. & Hetherington, R. Mindfulness, Resilience and Wellbeing for Postgraduate Researchers. Presented at the Postgraduate Research for Student Wellbeing Training and Support Day held by the Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) in Leeds.
Co-Chaired the second Medical Education conference at the University of Sunderland with Munesh Khamuani via my role as Senior Lecturer in Medical Education.
2023
December: Interviewed for a TASME Time Podcast: Mindfulness in Medical Education
November: Chair of ASME Webinar with Karen Atkinson from MindfulnessUK entitled, ‘Compassionate Mindful Resilience Programme: Connect and Thrive in a Busy World’. Link.
October: Chair of ASME Webinar on Mindful Listening with Dr Kathryn Mannix. Link.
January: Led an ASME Bitesize Session: Preventing Burnout in Healthcare Education and Practice: Mindfulness and Self-Care. Link.
November: Mindfulness and Self-Care Workshop for the MSc in Clinical Science Module, Introduction to Clinical Leadership & Professional Development, at Newcastle University. Funded by Health Education England (HEE).
September: Workshop on Mindfulness and Sustanability with Dr Jake Shepherd. Faculty of Sustainable Healthcare conference at Newcastle University.
July: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Workshop at ASME's Annual Scientific Meeting, Birmingham.
Co-Chaired the first Medical Education conference at the University of Sunderland with Munesh Khamuani via my role as Senior Lecturer in Medical Education.
2022
Atkinson, M. & Bregazzi, R. (2022) Planning for Classroom Teaching. South Sudan Medical Journal, 15 (4). pp. 152-155. ISSN 2309-4605. Link.
Atkinson, M. (2022) Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Communication Piece. The Association for the Study of Medical Education website. Link.
Atkinson, M. & Vidarshi, K (Eds) (June 2022) Mindfulness in Medical Education Conference Supplement, The Clinical Teacher. The Association for the Study of Medical Education & Wiley. Link.
March: Presentation at Newcastle University’s Learning and Teaching Conference, entitled, ‘The Introduction of Mindfulness to Newcastle University’.
July: Mindfulness in Medical Education workshop at The Association of the Study of Medical Education's (ASME's) Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM) conference in Aberdeen.
November: Mindfulness and Self-Care Workshop for the MSc in Clinical Science Module, Introduction to Clinical Leadership and Professional Development, at Newcastle University. Funded by Health Education England (HEE).
December: Atkinson, M. & Hetherington, R. Mindfulness, Resilience and Wellbeing for Postgraduate Researchers. Presented at the Postgraduate Research for Student Wellbeing Training and Support Day held by the Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) in Manchester.
Co-Chaired a Mindfulness in Medical Education conference with Dr Vidarshi Karunaratne via my Mindfulness in Medical Education Special Interest Group for ASME.
Created narrative for World Kindness Day for The Association of the Study of Medical Education (ASME's). Link.
Initiated a study that helped Karen Atkinson’s (MindfulnessUK) 4-Week Compassionate Mindfulness Resilience programme to become the first BAMBA accredited 4-week mindfulness-based course.
2021
Guilding, Clare, Pye, Rachel E., Butler, Stephanie, Atkinson, Michael and Field, Eimear (2021) Answering questions in a co-created formative exam question bank improves summative exam performance, while students perceive benefits from answering, authoring and peer-discussion: A mixed methods analysis of PeerWise. Pharmacology Research & Perspectives, 9 (4). pp. 1-12. ISSN 2052-1707. Link.
March: Podcast – Ideas in Academic Practice: Mental Health and Wellbeing in the University During Uncertain Times. Published by Newcastle University. Link.
July: Facilitated mindfulness workshop at the Association of the Study of Medical Education’s Annual Scholarship Meeting.
June: 20:20 presentation Adapting Research Student Training and Development to Integrate Personal Development and Wellbeing Support for Research Students. Dr Richy Hetherington, Dr Gail De Blaquiere, Kate Aitchison, Michael Atkinson, Dr Lucy Robinson, Rob Bedford, Dr Laura Leonardo, Laura Stevenson and Simon Cotterill | Newcastle University.
March – April: Co-facilitated a series of online discussion groups with Nicholas Buxton, Just Meditation (based in Durham), on the theme of mindfulness and ethics.
2019
Nicolau, M. & Atkinson, M. (2019) Do student and survey characteristics affect the quality of UK undergraduate medical education course evaluation? A systematic review of the literature., Studies in Educational Evaluation, 62. pp. 92-103. ISSN 0191-491X. Link.
November: Presentation of pilot research project on Mindfulness and Clinical Decision-Making with medical students on Student Selected Components (SSC) in the RVI and in GP context. Presented at the Annual Clinical Reasoning in Medical Education (CReME) Conference at University of York. Lead researcher on the project and working with Dr Caroline Sprake and Dr Lucy Harrison.
November: rNorth-East Postgraduate (NEPG) Conference. Co-led workshop with Dr Zoe Williams on mindfulness. (Good Morning Britain, Trust Me I’m a Doctor).
October: Led a mindfulness workshop for GPs at The Grand Hotel, Gosforth, Newcastle with Dr Zoe Williams (Good Morning Britain, Trust Me I’m a Doctor).
May: Mindfulness talk at the Pint of Science Festival in Newcastle.
May: Contributed to a mindfulness symposium at the 1st International Conference on the Mental Health and Well-being of Postgraduate Researchers in Brighton – organised by the UK Council for Graduate Education.
February: Talk entitled, ‘Mindfulness: A way to improve well-being in our personal and professional lives’ given to the North of England Odontological Society at Newcastle University.
2018
March: Presentation on mindfulness and resilience research delivered at Newcastle University’s Learning and Teaching Conference.
March: Talk on mindfulness and mental health delivered at ‘Little Ted Talks’ in North Tyneside.
2017
September: Izquierdo, D., Atkinson, M. & Hetherington, R. Mindfulness to support resilience and wellbeing. Presented at Vitae Conference, Research into Researcher Development.
Atkinson, M. (2017) Can regular mindfulness practice contribute to an improved sense of resilience in research students? Poster presentation at the Association for the Study of Medical Education conference at Exeter University on June 17. Also presented at Three Rivers Conference at Teesside University in May 2017, and presented at the Newcastle Meditation Centre.
July: Sarma, S. & Atkinson, M. “I don’t belong here” – how the imposter phenomenon affects learning in medical students struggling academically. Presented at the International Association for Medical Education conference in Helsinki.
2010
Duffy, K. & Atkinson, M. (2010) How do we create lasting and radical change in Post 14 Education?. Teaching in Lifelong Learning: A Journal to Inform and Improve Practice, 2 (1). pp. 56-66. ISSN 2040-0993. Link.
2009
Atkinson, M. (2009) A New Consideration of Values in Teacher Education. Presented at the British Education Research Association (BERA) conference at Manchester University.
2008
Atkinson, M. & Lertoria, T. (2008) Opportunity Knocks: Routes into Teacher Education. Sunderland & London: University of Sunderland & the Quality Improvement Agency (QIA).
Gregson, M., Spedding, T., Atkinson, M. & McCartney, K. (2008) Making the Road by Walking: paths to becoming a professional teacher educator. In: British Education Research Association (BERA) Also presented at BERA Conference at Edinburgh: Heriott-Watt University in 2008.