Rate My Professor Katie Gibson Smith

Dr Katie Gibson Smith is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Medicine, Medical Sciences and Nutrition at the University of Aberdeen. She holds a BA (Hons) First Class Honours in Applied Social Sciences from 2010, a PGCert with Distinction in Research Methods from 2015, and a PhD in Health Promotion from 2016, all awarded by the Robert Gordon University. She is a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society since 2020 and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Her academic career includes co-founding and co-leading the Scottish Widening Access to Medicine Research Network in 2021, serving as Intervention Development Workstream Lead on a Chief Scientist Office-funded project supporting doctors’ wellbeing during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic, and acting as Course Coordinator for ME5513 Fundamentals of Data Management and Analysis as well as Deputy Course Coordinator for ME5026 Planning and Design of Clinical Education. She has also served as PhD External Examiner at the University of Lancaster since 2021.

Dr Gibson Smith’s research specialises in equity in medical education and healthcare, with a focus on structural and systemic barriers experienced by underrepresented groups including students from widening participation backgrounds, minority ethnic doctors and medical students, and disabled professionals in medicine. Her work examines widening participation initiatives such as the Gateway2Medicine programme, lived experiences of career progression, and the development of evidence-informed interventions to support wellbeing and resilience. She applies mixed methods approaches including qualitative interviews, focus groups, questionnaires, Delphi consensus methods, and systematic reviews, while drawing on educational, implementation, and behaviour change theories. Key contributions include co-authored publications on topics such as identity strengths among widening participation medical students, help-seeking behaviours, and experiences of racial discrimination in specialty training. She is a member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Health and Wellbeing Community of Interest and Social Sciences Sub-Committee, the Young Academy of Scotland from 2020 to 2025, and serves as Academic Editor for PLOS One along with multiple external peer review roles for journals and funding bodies. Her grants include support from the Carnegie Trust, National Institute for Health Research, and Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium for projects on career decision making and doctors with disabilities.