Christian Lyder Gulbrandsen, retired dean and professor emeritus of medicine at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM), died in his Waimea home on Hawaiʻi Island on August 8. He was 80.
Gulbrandsen helped transform learning at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa medical school from its traditional lecture-style curriculum to an active, hands-on, mentor-to-student and student-to-student style called “Problem-Based Learning.”
He joined JABSOM in 1971 and later became chair of medicine. He designed and led the Integrated Medical Residency Program. When Terence Rogers retired in 1988, UH President Albert Simone appointed Gulbrandsen as Rogers’ successor.
“The Problem-Based Learning results have proven Dr. Gulbrandsen’s vision to be amazingly accurate in producing extremely competent and capable physicians throughout the state of Hawaiʻi,” said Benjamin Young, JABSOM’s former dean of students.
