Profile
Dr Arabella Begin
Profile
Dr Arabella Begin (nee Simpkin) is a physician, researcher and author, and Fellow and Director of Clinical Medicine at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. Arabella studied medicine and completed her DPhil at Lincoln College, holds a Master's in Medical Education from Harvard Medical School, and trained as a paediatrician, gaining membership to the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. She previously held academic and leadership positions at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, including Assistant Professor in Medicine and Associate Director of the Center for Educational Innovation and Scholarship, and led medical curriculum innovation at Imperial College London. An internationally recognised researcher and speaker on uncertainty, Arabella is the author of The Power of Uncertainty: How to Think, Decide, and Thrive in an Unpredictable World, forthcoming in Spring 2027 with HarperCollins and Pegasus Books. After a decade overseas in the US and Australia, she now lives in Oxford with her husband and three children.
- Research
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For more than two decades, Arabella's research has explored how humans respond to uncertainty and how those responses shape decision-making, behaviour, performance and wellbeing. Her work has focused particularly on uncertainty in clinical medicine, examining its influence on diagnostic reasoning, resource use, patient-doctor relationships, medical error and clinician burnout. She is especially interested in how the culture of medicine shapes clinicians' responses to uncertainty and how developing the capacity to navigate the unknown can strengthen clinical judgement, resilience and patient care.
Her research spans medical education, behavioural science and human performance, with a particular emphasis on translating evidence into practical approaches for individuals, teams and healthcare systems. She has published extensively in leading peer-reviewed journals and contributed to the development of innovative medical curricula designed to prepare clinicians for the unpredictable realities of practice. Increasingly, her work extends beyond medicine, drawing on insights from professionals operating in high-stakes environments, including aviation, space exploration, elite sport and business, to understand how individuals and organisations can navigate uncertainty more skilfully.
Through her research, writing and teaching, Arabella seeks to advance our understanding of uncertainty not simply as a challenge to be overcome, but as an intrinsic feature of human experience that, when approached skilfully, can support better decisions, adaptability and wellbeing.
- Select publications
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Begin AS, Hidrue M, Lehrhoff S, Inges IT, Armstrong K, Weilburg JB, Del Carmen MG, Wasfy JH. Association of Self-Reported Primary Care Physician Tolerance of Uncertainty and Variation in Resource Use and Patient Experience. JAMA Network Open 2022;5(9):e2229521
Simpkin A, Schwartzstein R. Tolerating Uncertainty – The Next Medical Revolution? NEJM 2016; 375(18): 1713-1715
Simpkin A, Vyas J, Armstrong K. Diagnostic reasoning: An endangered competency in internal medicine training. Annals of Internal Medicine 2017; 167(7):507-508
Simpkin AL, Chang Y, Yu L, Campbell EG, Armstrong K, Walensky RP. Assessment of job satisfaction and feeling valued in academic medicine. JAMA Int Med. 2019; 179(7):992-994
Gheihman G, Johnson M, Simpkin AL. Twelve tips for thriving in the face of clinical uncertainty. Medical Teacher 2019; 26:1-7
Simpkin Begin A, Hidrue M, Lehrhoff S, Del Carmen MG, Armstrong K, Wasfy JH. Factors associated with physician tolerance of uncertainty: an observational study. J Gen Intern Med. 2021 Apr 26:1-7 doi: 10.1007/s11606-021-06776-8
Position
- Audrey and Lewis Cannell Clinical Fellow Director of Studies in Clinical Medicine Lincoln College, University of Oxford