Paula Rowland PhD
Scientist – The Wilson Centre | MD Education Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Assistant Professor, Department of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
Cross Appointment, Institute of Health Policy Management and Evaluation
Future of professional work
Paula Rowland began her career as an occupational therapist, working with children and adults in multiple healthcare settings across Canada. Following an interest in how the places where professionals work shape how they work, what they can know, and what they can learn, Paula pursued graduate studies in health systems and organizations. Having completed her PhD in 2013, Dr. Rowland focuses on broad mandates to reform the practice of health professionals within clinical workplaces. Her existing research has explored two substantive change efforts: patient engagement programs and patient safety and quality improvement programs. In each of these domains, Dr. Rowland explores questions about knowledge, power, and identity.
Through these studies of change efforts, Dr. Rowland’s program of research (a) extends and disrupts theorizations of professions and professional work, (b) builds from these conceptually rich understandings to examine interactions between professions, professional work, and healthcare reform, (c) contributes to education science through explorations of these changing dynamics and their implications for professional knowledge and learning. Conceptually and theoretically, her work makes connections between sociology of the professions, sociology of work, and health professions education.
Dr. Rowland is interested in working with students and colleagues using social science theories to understand patient engagement, quality improvement, and patient safety programs. She is also interested in sociocultural approaches to understanding learning and practice within clinical workplaces. This might include dynamics of the clinical learning environment, practice-based learning, workplace learning, knowledge mobilization, and continuing professional development. Ultimately, she contributes to models of education that support future experts and future expertise in a rapidly changing world.
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