Graduate Teaching

Please note: I am no longer accepting new students, as I near retirement.

My graduate teaching takes place within the Division of Population Health and Applied Health Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine.
I teach and supervise students in the PhD, MSc, and MHE programmes. In my supervision of graduate students, I emphasise peer support, emotional safety, self-reflection, and the ‘flat hierarchy’ of cooperative learning approaches.

Graduate Courses

Critical Theory in Society and Health (MED 6102)

This course provides an in-depth examination of critical theory in relation to society and health. We focus especially on how different theoretical perspectives frame ‘illness’, ‘health’, ‘healing’, or ‘medicine’ as objects of study. We explore questions raised by technologies upon which the practice of contemporary medicine depends, with attention to questions concerning the status of ‘the body’. This course focuses in particular on critical perspectives and the connections among power, knowledge, and practice in health and medicine.

Postcolonial Theory: Considering the “Other” in Science, Medicine and Bioethics (MED 6226)

This course acquaints learners with postcolonial theory and methodologies that consider the “Other” in relation to science, medicine, and bioethics. It emphasises identity and power, specifically in relation to decolonizing and degendering theories, and includes consideration of whether and how those writing from privileged identities and social locations can write about the “Other”. This course is useful for students whose work focuses on gender, race, class, indigeneity, (dis)ability, sexuality, or globalization. Theorists whose work will be examined offer critiques in the areas of: science and technology studies; social studies of medicine; and bioethics.

I offer reading courses in the extended Spring/Summer session. Topics have included:

Culture and Power in Science and Medicine: Readings in Critical Interpretive Medical Anthropology                                                                   

Through the study of key texts in the field of Medical Anthropology, with specific attention to analyses of culture in its relation to power, this course provides learners with a foundation in the “critical interpretive” approach within medical anthropology and within the broader field of social studies of science and medicine. Topics include: culture in relation to power; writing and representing culture and power; biomedicine as a cultural system; bodies as symbols; medical pluralism; and governmentality and biopolitics. 

Indigeneity and Bioethics                                                                                       

Recent and emerging ethical issues related to Indigenous health are covered in this course. Specific topics include: context of colonialism and health with a focus on power and Indigeneity; cross-cultural clinical ethics, with a focus on Indigenous concepts of wellness in the context of colonialism; and the ethics of research involving Indigenous communities, including decolonizing methodologies. The learner will gain a working knowledge of the literature relevant to understanding contemporary ethical issues in Indigenous health, health care, and health research.

Critical Race Theory: Race and Slavery in Medicine and Public Health 

Using historical primary sources as well as critical secondary sources, this course employs critical race theory through particular attention to the historical role played by slavery, colonialism, and other racist policies in the development of medicine and public health. Course material also explores the enduring legacy of this history as evidenced by implicit and explicit racialist/racialising policies in the contemporary context. Learners will develop skills in reading, understanding, and applying critical race theory to the study of social phenomena related to health, science, medicine, public health, and bioethics.

Undergraduate Medicine

My colleagues and I design and deliver the bioethics curriculum for undergraduate medical students. As part of that curriculum I have created a module on “Diversity, Culture, and Ethics”, which is described in the paper Guidelines for Teaching Cross-Cultural Ethics.

Early on in my teaching career, a family physician and I initiated the MUN MED Gateway Programme, which provides service learning opportunities for medical students working with new Canadians. 

I am responsible for the ethics content of the Global Health Office’s pre-departure training for students volunteering overseas.

Postgraduate Medicine

My colleagues and I provide ethics education for all of the residency programs, including an “Ethics 101” refresher training for all PGY1s. Specific topics that I have designed and delivered include: Cross-Cultural Ethics; Research Ethics; Medical Aid in Dying; Ethical Issues in Pediatrics; Ethical Issues in Neonatology; Advanced Directives; and Ethical Issues in General Surgery, among others.

I was part of a team to develop an on-line curriculum on “Providing culturally safe health care to Indigenous patients in NL”. This seven-module training programme for MDs is offered through the Office of Professional and Education Development, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University.

Past Graduate Students Supervised

PhD Students

Jinelle Ramlackhansingh (PhD, 2022) “Professional Identity Development of Pre-clerkship Students: A Critical Analysis”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

• Memorial University Faculty of Medicine Deans Fellowship Award, 2018-2020, $40,000.
• Memorial University School of Graduate Studies Dean’s Excellence Award, 2018-2020, $10,000.

Current position: Senior Lecturer in Public Health Medicine, Kent and Medway Medical School, UK.

Valerie Webber (PhD, 2022) “Epistemic Injustice and Public Health Policy: The Case of Occupational Health in Porn Production”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

• 2022 Fry Family Foundation Graduate Award, $10,000
• 2022 Chancellor’s Graduate Award
• 2022 Dr. Sharon Buehler Community Health & Humanities Convocation Award, $669
• 2022 Memorial University Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies Award, PhD
• Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Doctoral Scholarship, 2017-2020, $105,000.
• Memorial University Dean's Excellence Award, 2017-2020, $15,000.
• Memorial University F.A. Aldrich Fellowship, 2016-2018, $40,000.
• Memorial University Dean's Doctoral Award, 2016-2020, $20,000.
• Memorial University Graduate Studies Award, 2016-2020, $24,000.
• Colman Graduate Student Award, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, 2019, $500.
• Memorial University Community Health and Humanities Divisional Award, 2016, $6000.

Current position: Postdoctoral Fellow at the Sexual Health and Gender Lab (SHaG Lab), Faculty of Health, Dalhousie University.

Zack Marshall [co-supervised] (PhD 2018), “Documenting Research with Transgender, Gender Non-binary, and Other Gender Diverse (Trans) People: An Evidence Map and Ethical Analysis”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

• Dean’s Fellowship, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, 2016 – 2017 ($33,000)
• Mental Health Research Scholarship, Canadian Mental Health Association, 2015 ($1,000)
• Doctoral fellowship, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and Research & Development Corporation NL, 2014 – 2015 ($110,000)
• Dean’s Fellowship, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University, 2012-2013 ($27,000).

Current position:  Associate Professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary.

Sheila Marchant-Short, (PhD 2017) [part-time], “The Experience of Health Care Workers as Second Victims of Adverse Events”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Current position: Vice President, Regulatory at Thentia Cloud (https://thentia.com/about/).

Melody Morton-Ninomiya (PhD 2015), “Institutional ethnography as an instrument of change: Making an emancipatory method of inquiry visible”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

• Awarded “Distinction” for dissertation, 2015
• Fellow of the School of Graduate Studies, Memorial University, 2015
• Faculty of Medicine Research Fellowship, Memorial University, 2015 ($10,000)
• Senior Women Academic Administrators of Canada (SWAAC) – National Graduate Student Award of Merit, 2014 ($3,000)
• CIHR Doctoral Fellowship Award, 2011-2014 ($52,500)
• Research & Development Corporation NL, 2011-2014 ($52,500)
• Northern Scientific Training Program Award, 2013 ($2,833)
• Canadian Student Health Research Forum, 2012 ($2,000)
• CIHR Summer Institute, Peer Review for Research Grants, 2012 ($1,500)
• Medical Grad Students’ Society Scholar and Community Involvement Award, 2012 ($500)
• CIHR Institute of Gender & Health Summer Institute, 2011 ($3,200)
• Memorial University F.A. Aldrich Scholarship, 2010 $30,000)
• Faculty of Medicine Dean’s Fellowship, 2010 $20,000) – declined

Current position: Assistant Professor, Health Sciences, Wilfrid Laurier University and Tier II Canada Research Chair (Community-Driven Knowledge Mobilization and Pathways to Wellness), Wilfred Laurier University; Affiliate Scientist, Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, CAMH.

April Manuel (PhD 2013), “Constructing the Meaning of Being at Risk: The Experiences of Individuals Living in Families At Risk for Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Cardiomyopathy in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Current position: Associate Professor, Memorial University Faculty of Nursing; Associate Dean, Research and Interim Dean, Faculty of Nursing, Memorial University.

Masters Students

Chris Olsen (MSc, 2022) “Refugee Blues: A Critical Examination of the Interim Federal Health Program”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Rachel Hewitt (MHE, 2022), “Employing a Care Ethics Lens to Examine the Use of Socially Assistive Robots in Meeting the Social and Cognitive Needs of Older Adults”,  Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Ijeoma Staunton (MHE, 2021), Non-thesis option, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Jennifer Mackey (MHE, 2021), Non-thesis option, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Amnesty Cornelius (MHE, 2020), Non-thesis option, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Barbara Mason (MHE, 2018), “Palliative and End of Life Care for People with Dementia in NL”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Karine Bernard [co-supervised] (MSc 2018), “Beyond Food: Contribution of a Community Kitchen and a School-based Community Garden to the Well-being, Sense of Belonging, and Cultural and Linguistic Identity of Francophones and Francophiles Living in St. John’s, Newfoundland”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Brittany Chubbs (MHE, 2017), Non-thesis option, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Sonya Bowen (MSc, 2017), “An Inquiry into Stigma within Mental Healthcare Policy”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Philmona Kebedom (MHE, 2014), Non-thesis option, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Ashley Patten (MSc, 2014), “How is Self-mutilation Constructed? An Examination of Discourses of Gender, the Body, and Risk in the DSM and by Psychiatrists”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Valerie Darmonkow (MSc, 2012), “Medical Geneticists’ Perspectives on Barriers Towards Access and Uptake of Genetic Services”, Division of Community Health and Humanities, Memorial University.

Julie Bull [co-supervised] (MSc 2008), “Aboriginal Ethics and the Politics of Risk in the Labrador Context”, Division of Community Health and Humanities (ARTC Training Programme), Memorial University.