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Connecting biomedical education with the medical humanities to advance translational medicine

Nature Medicine (2025)Cite this article

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The celebration of the 30th anniversary of Nature Medicine not only highlights progress in translating basic scientific discoveries into clinical applications but also identifies new, complex societal challenges — such as climate change and public distrust in science — that will shape the future of medicine. To adapt and prepare for this future, we must consider what implications these worldwide health challenges will have for our clinical practice and what new types of fundamental scientific questions this might entail. Training health professionals to deal creatively with these problems, while keeping the needs of patients and society central, is becoming ever more relevant1.

Bridging fundamental science with clinical practice, societal and patient needs has been the focus of the field of translational medicine for several decades now. Although much progress has been made in this area of research, many potentially relevant scientific findings still do not make it into the clinic and end up in the ‘valley of death’, resulting in a waste of resources in biomedical research2. One proposed solution is to reverse the traditional direction in which translational research is conducted using the reverse translation paradigm3. With reverse translation, patients’ experiences and societal challenges are used as a starting point for research. This process requires structural, scholarly informed insight into the needs of patients and society.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Mike van Spaandonk, Lies Hoogerwerf.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Education, University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Mike van Spaandonk, Lies Hoogerwerf, Annet van Royen-Kerkhof & Stefan van Geelen

  2. Department of Pathology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Toine ten Broeke, Sandra Crnko, Thijs Koorman & Niels Bovenschen

  3. Center for Translational Immunology, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Niels Bovenschen

  4. Department of Pediatric Rheumatology, Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, UMC Utrecht, Utrecht, the Netherlands

    Annet van Royen-Kerkhof

Authors
  1. Mike van Spaandonk
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  2. Lies Hoogerwerf
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  3. Toine ten Broeke
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  4. Sandra Crnko
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  5. Thijs Koorman
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  6. Niels Bovenschen
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  7. Annet van Royen-Kerkhof
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  8. Stefan van Geelen
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Niels Bovenschen or Stefan van Geelen.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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van Spaandonk, M., Hoogerwerf, L., ten Broeke, T. et al. Connecting biomedical education with the medical humanities to advance translational medicine. Nat Med (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03839-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03839-9

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