Paula Rowland PhD
Scientist – The Wilson Centre
Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
Cross Appointment, Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation
Future of professional work
Paula Rowland’s research examines change in healthcare professionals’ work, how professions are responding to these changes, and implications for health professions education. She is particularly interested in meanings of professionalism and politics of expertise within contexts of changing clinical workplaces. Historically, she has studied change efforts related to patient safety, quality improvement, and patient engagement. Currently, she focuses on digitalization of healthcare work and associated implications for healthcare workers’ identities, forms of knowledge, dynamics of power, and possibilities for collaboration. She primarily uses qualitative methodologies, drawing from and contributing to critically oriented social science theories on professions, expertise, and work.
Paula’s primary appointment is Assistant Professor in the Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at University of Toronto. She holds several affiliated academic and research roles:
Adjunct Scientist at The Institute for Education Research (TIER), University Health Network
Strategic Advisor for the Centre for Advancing Collaborative Healthcare and Education (CACHE), University of Toronto and University Health Network
Faculty Affiliate with the Schwartz Reisman Institute for Technology and Society
Senior Fellow with AMS Healthcare
In addition to these academic and advisory positions, she is the founding member of ETCHwork, a collaborative focused on exploring the intersections of ethics, technology, and change in healthcare work.
Paula is interested in working with students and colleagues using social science theories to understand healthcare reform, care work, and changing carer identities, particularly in the context of digitalization and datafication of healthcare work.
Websites
Current Fellows and HPER Doctoral Students
Sanne Kaas-Mason
Sanne Kaas-Mason is a Research Fellow at the Wilson Centre, and a PhD student in the Health Professions Education Research (HPER) doctoral concentration offered by the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME), Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, in collaboration with the faculty of the Wilson Centre, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. Her research interests focus on the spectrum of relatively stable or fluid ways that constellations of collaboration show up across healthcare spaces, and how these impact the delivery of care. This includes interprofessional ways of collaborating. She also explores how entrenched distributions of power, along with siloed understandings of illness and care, might influence collaborative practices of healthcare practitioners. Sanne draws on her academic training as an interprofessional education (IPE) educator and as political scientist to examine the context, underlying structures and lived experience of healthcare practitioners to deepen her understanding of these behaviours. Sanne is also the recipient of the Kimel-Schatzky Scholarship at the Wilson Centre for 2021-2024.
Supervisors: Cynthia Whitehead and Paula Rowland
Andrea Pozo-Barruel
Andrea Pozo-Barruel is a Research Fellow at the Wilson Centre, and a PhD student in the Health Professions Education Research (HPER) doctoral concentration offered by the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME), Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto. She completed a Master of Education at the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science in Human Communication Sciences at the Universidad de las Americas in Mexico. Her research interests focus on how disability is represented in the healthcare context, and how these representations construct the identity of people living with a disability. Currently, Andrea’s doctoral work explores how disability is conceptualized in paediatrics populations within rehabilitation.
Andrea is the recipient of the Kimel-Schatzky Scholarship at the Wilson Centre for 2022-2025.
Supervisors: Paula Rowland. Stella Ng, Maria Mylopoulos
Harneet Somal
Harneet Somal is a PhD student in the Health Professions Education Research (HPER) doctoral concentration at the Institute of Health Policy, Management, and Evaluation (IHPME), in collaboration with the Wilson Centre at the University of Toronto. Prior to this, she completed a Bachelors of Science in Kinesiology from Wilfrid Laurier University and a Masters of Science in Physical Therapy from the University of Toronto.
Harneet’s clinical work is centered in the sub-specialty of orthopaedics in the private practice division of physiotherapy, where she provides care for individuals along the lifespan. She has co-authored peer-reviewed publications and research projects on digital technologies in physiotherapy and educational tool-kits for Functional Electrical Stimulation use in practice, while also contributing as an adjunct lecturer in the University of Toronto’s Physical Therapy program.
Harneet’s doctoral research looks to address the barriers to inclusion and diversity in the physiotherapy curriculum and to create strategies for a more inclusive, diverse, and culturally sensitive learning environment for future students.
Supervisor: Paula Rowland