Recognising innovation in rheumatology education
Karolinska Institutet has received the 2026 EULAR Best Undergraduate Teaching Concept Award for SARI (Social AI-enhanced Robotic Interface), recognising an innovative approach to undergraduate medical education in rheumatology.
Developed at Karolinska Institutet and the Center for Molecular Medicine (CMM), SARI combines social robotics and large language models to create interactive virtual patient encounters for medical students.
Through SARI, students can conduct natural, spoken consultations with a socially expressive robotic patient that responds both verbally and through facial expressions. Following the encounter, students receive automated AI-generated feedback on their performance, supporting clinical reasoning, communication skills and reflective learning.
SARI has already been implemented in the regular medical curriculum at Karolinska Institutet and evaluated in studies involving nearly 200 medical students. Published evaluations have shown favourable effects on clinical reasoning, communication skills and empathic approach compared with more conventional computer-based virtual patient platforms.
The development, evaluation and implementation of SARI are led by Ioannis Parodis and Alexander Borg at Karolinska Institutet and CMM. The EULAR award recognises the initiative as an innovative teaching concept and highlights the potential of combining simulation, social robotics and generative AI to strengthen clinically relevant medical education.
Congratulations to everyone involved in this exciting achievement!
From left: Ioannis Parodis, Dionysis Nikolopoulos and Alexander Borg representing Karolinska Institutet, together with EULAR President Xenofon Baraliakos at the award ceremony.
