Tina’s academic training in Political Science and the Sociology of Higher Education, combined with over two decades working in clinical contexts and university administration has led her to develop a unique interdisciplinary orientation to the study of health professions education. At the heart of her research program is the exploration of problematic socio-political relationships that impact the mission of health professional organizations to prepare and support clinicians to provide comprehensive and compassionate care to all patients.

Theoretically, Tina’s works aims to elaborate on governmentality effects: the ways in which dominant discourses impact professional identity negotiations, particularly the articulation and application of expertise. She thus studies the material effects of discourse as a particular dimension of the hidden curriculum with the potential to support or hinder educational delivery and learning. Tina is also interested in ways in which organizations and educational programs may inadvertently create the conditions for knowledge stratification. Entry points for this work are discourses, such as collaboration, humanism, integration, caring, and globalization. These pervasive discourses and the associated activities, identities, tools, and cultural symbols they make possible, manifest formally and informally and influence the value systems that academic health care providers, learners and patients bring to their interactions.

Her educational practice is closely aligned to her research program. As an educator, Tina employs critical and social cultural pedagogies to enable clinician educators to incorporate complex negotiations of the social world in their educational planning and implementation.