Mohammadreza Hojat, PhD

Dr. Mohammadreza Hojat is Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and Director of the Jefferson Longitu­dinal Study at the Center. He received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Hojat is a licensed psychologist, and in addition to medical education research, other areas of his research interest include empathy in health professions education and patient care, inter-professional collaboration, physician lifelong learning, psychosocial factors in academic and professional performance, mother-child attachment and personal qualities, psychodynamics of loneliness, cross-cultural studies, and personality development and measurement.

Dr. Hojat has led the development of 10 psychometrically sound instruments for the assessment of medical education and patient outcomes and professional development, which have contributed greatly to research in personal qualities of physicians-in-training and in-practice. He has more than 35 years of experience in educational and psychological research, and has published over 200 articles in peer reviewed journals and 13 book chapters on educational, psychological and social issues in general, and in medical education and patient care in particular. He is a manuscript referee for several American and European professional journals, and has served as a guest co-editor for thematic issues of the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality on loneliness (1987, Volume 2, No. 2, Part 2), Academic Medicine on assessment measures in medical school and beyond (1993, Volume 68, No. 2, February Supplement); and section coeditor of the Evaluation & the Health Professions on medical education and changes in health care (1999, Volume 22, No. 2, pp.149-220).

Dr. Hojat's research on measurment, development, erosion, enhancement, and coorelates of empathy in health professions education and patient care has received broad media coverage, featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Philadelphia Inquirer, and on NPR and television program segments.

Dr. Hojat is a coauthor of two books: Lonliness: Theory, Research, and Applications (Springer, 1987), and Assessment Measures in Medical School, Residency, and Practice: The Connections (Springer, 1993), and a monograph: Personality Assessments and Outcomes in Medical Education and Practice of Medicine (AMEE Guide 79, 2014). The original edition of Dr. Hojat's book: Empathy in Patient Care: Antecedents Development and Outcomes was published by Springer in 2007. The expanded and updated edition of his seminal book under a new title: Empathy in Health in Health Professions Education and Patient Care was released by Springer in 2016.