Researcher profile

Professor Jonathan Koffman

My current role is as Professor in Palliative Care at the Wolfson Palliative Care Research Centre, Hull York Medical School and Chair of the Hull York Medical School Research Ethics Committee. I have a research portfolio that comprises three areas: (i) designing and evaluating complex interventions; (ii) the relationship between ethnicity, culture and the experience of advanced disease, specifically cancer and multiple sclerosis; (iii) the experience and impact of disadvantaged dying and social exclusion. My research on the epidemiology of advanced disease, needs assessment, social exclusion at the end of life, ethics, and social diversity and advanced disease has been published extensively in high-impact peer-reviewed journals. I have also made contributions to the development of the specialty and have been published in world-leading textbooks, e.g. the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. I have developed an international reputation for my research that has led to invitations to advise government bodies, the World Health Organisation, and NGOs, on the development and organisation of end-of-life care. I am Course Director for the MSc in Palliative Care: Implementing Best Practice at Hull York Medical School. This multi-professional MSc programme is distinctive with its focus on implementation science. Until 2018, I was Course Director for the highly acclaimed inter-professional MSc, PG Diploma and PG Certificate in Palliative Care at King’s College London. I developed and grew this programme from its inception and ensured that academic and educational quality was continually monitored and enhanced. It now has a current intake of around 40 students per year. The MSc is recognised as a leading national and international graduate course in palliative care, a point frequently highlighted by our External Examiners and outside agencies; the Quality Assurance Agency referred to it as an 'exemplary example of postgraduate education at King’s College London '. I taught extensively on the MSc in Palliative Care and students rated my teaching consistently as ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’. In 2008, based on nominations from undergraduate and postgraduate students at King's College London, I was awarded a ‘Teaching Excellence Award’. From 2008 until 2013, I was Dean for Postgraduate Teaching in the School of Medicine, King’s College London. I assumed responsibility for the management, governance and quality assurance for over 30 postgraduate programmes in the School of Medicine that include the MSc in Medical Engineering and Physics, the Master's in Public Health, MSc in Dermatology and MSc Advanced Paediatrics, among others. I developed highly effective teamwork and collaboration among the course leads for the MSc programmes, successfully initiated annual reporting, and standardised the marking and progression criteria. I successfully ensured that all MSc programmes were always QAA compliant.