Authentic and Transformative Learning in Medical Education for a Changing World

Dear Colleagues,

Medical education is increasingly challenged to prepare students for a complex and rapidly changing world. Contemporary healthcare extends beyond biomedical knowledge alone, requiring future professionals to engage with uncertainty, diversity, and the broader societal contexts that shape health and care. At the same time, students themselves bring evolving perspectives, values, and expectations into the learning environment.

These developments call for educational approaches that move beyond traditional teaching methods. There is a growing need to create learning experiences that are authentic, transformative, and connected to real-world practice. Approaches such as community-engaged learning, arts-based education, and other innovative pedagogies offer opportunities to foster critical reflection, perspective-taking, and the development of adaptive expertise.

Building on the success of our first Special Issue (New Advancements in Medical Education, https://www.mdpi.com/journal/ime/special_issues/4ZY391Y8K9), we are pleased to invite contributions for a second Special Issue that focuses on educational practices that connect medical learning to lived experience, societal challenges, and professional identity formation.

The aim of this Special Issue is to bring together diverse perspectives on how medical education can support transformative and authentic learning in response to contemporary societal needs.

We particularly welcome contributions that explore, but are not limited to, the following themes:

- Authentic learning in medical education;
- Transformative learning and professional identity formation;
- Arts and humanities in medical education;
- Community-engaged and service learning;
- Learning through real-world complexity and uncertainty;
- Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches;
- Patient perspectives and lived experience in teaching;
- Reflective practice and meaning-making in medical education.

We invite educators, researchers, and practitioners to share their work, experiences, and innovations. By doing so, we aim to create a space for inspiration, dialog, and collaboration across contexts.

Dr. Rahul Pandit
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Medical Education is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1000 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.