Cynthia Whitehead
Biographic Data
| ID | 6740358 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cynthia Whitehead |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cynthia |
| FAMILY NAME | Whitehead |
| SIGNATURE | WHITEHEAD C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University Health Network |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0134-9074 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 28 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 28 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
A time to rethink CPD for the virtual space
The history of Nagasaki, the Japanese birthplace of Western medicine and its education
Over the past several centuries, Western medical knowledge and practices have circulated globally through colonial, missionary, and educational networks. Contemporary trends toward standardization continue to shape medical education worldwide, often reinforcing asymmetric power relations between the Global North and South. Although dominant models have frequently marginalized local knowledge and traditions, medical education has also involved pro…
A critical discourse analysis of the problem-oriented medical record
Reflecting on experiences of resident redeployment during the Covid‐19 pandemic
Exploring interventions for fostering resilience among medical educators
INTRODUCTION: Resilience is essential for medical educators to fulfil their responsibilities. While research often focuses on individual well-being programs, less is known about how resilience is shaped by systemic and institutional interventions, particularly across diverse cultural contexts. This study explores interventions perceived by Hong Kong (HK) medical educators as fostering their resilience. METHODS: an online survey. Twenty medical ed…
Accreditation science—the need for evidence to guide the global expansion of medical education accreditation
Accreditation systems create and enforce the rules for medical education. When accreditors expand their scope or change their standards or protocols, every medical school they regulate must change, with lasting impacts on large numbers of graduating physicians. Because the accreditation of undergraduate medical education (UME) has become globally accepted and widespread, one may assume it is supported by strong evidence. Such is not the case. Thi…
Virtual teaching and power dynamics
INTRODUCTION: Global collaborations, particularly those between low-income (LIC) and high-income countries (HIC), may inadvertently reproduce the very power differentials they aspire to overcome. The Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration (TAAAC) is a partnership model deliberately built to follow a relational and invited guest model of collaboration with in-person teaching visits by University of Toronto (UofT) faculty to teach within Addis …
Addressing epistemic injustice (and ongoing effects of colonisation) through the Ethiopian intellectual tradition of Qiné
As global health and medical education scholars build their understanding of the historical and continuing influences of colonisation, the absence of non-western forms of thought in medical education remains a challenge. Qiné is an Ethiopian intellectual tradition and poetic practice dating back many centuries (predating colonialism) that continues to exist and has the potential to expand scholarly inquiry in critical spaces. The central tenet of…
Global research agenda for medical education regulation
BACKGROUND: Although medical education regulation is widely practised and given substantial resource and priority by policymakers and leaders, there is little empirical evidence to support it or guide regulation practices at an international level. In recent years, international and cross-border accreditation systems have gained prominence, often linked to migratory opportunities for graduating physicians. Given the high-stakes nature of regulati…
Exploring how structural forms of power shape the training of intraprofessional collaboration between family physicians and specialty physicians in outpatient workplace settings
Blind spots in medical education – International perspectives
BACKGROUND: All individuals and groups have blind spots that can create problems if unaddressed. The goal of this study was to examine blind spots in medical education from international perspectives. METHODS: From December 2022 to March 2023, we distributed an electronic survey through international networks of medical students, postgraduate trainees, and medical educators. Respondents named blind spots affecting their medical education system a…
“It takes a village to raise a child,” university teachers’ views on traditional education, modern education, and future I integration in Ethiopia
Introduction Indigenous education has recently gained prominence in international debates for its role in addressing the social, economic, and political issues faced by African states. Ethiopia, like other African countries, had its education system based primarily on the transmission of socio-professional aptitudes, religious values, skills, and intergenerational knowledge as a way to preserve the social, cultural, and religious values of the Et…
Shapeshifters
INTRODUCTION: Global South researchers struggle to publish in Global North journals, including journals dedicated to research on health professions education (HPE). As a consequence, Western perspectives and values dominate the international academic landscape of HPE. This study sought to understand Global South researchers' motivations and experiences of publishing in Global North journals. METHODS: This study used a hermeneutic phenomenological…
An opportunity to be grateful for? Exploring discourses about international medical graduates from India and Pakistan to the UK between 1960 and 1980
INTRODUCTION: Following India and Pakistan gaining independence from British colonial rule, many doctors from these countries migrated to the UK and supported its fledgling National Health Service (NHS). Although this contribution is now widely celebrated, these doctors often faced hardship and hostility at the time and continue to face discrimination and racism in UK medical education. This study sought to examine discursive framings about India…
Probing the past
INTRODUCTION: Disparities of power between high-income (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have long characterised the structures of global health, including knowledge production and training. Historical case study analysis is an often-overlooked tool to improve our understanding of how to mitigate inequalities. METHODS: Drawing from the contemporary experience of collaborators from Canada and Ethiopia, we chose to examine the his…
Competing discourses, contested roles
Fit for purpose
The authors comment on the need for research to account for how political and power dynamics are embedded in accreditation systems to explore their unintended consequences
Examining the WFME Recognition Programme at 10 years
BACKGROUND: In 2012, the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) evaluated and formally recognized the first agency in its Recognition Programme (RP). The RP was developed to review accrediting authorities in response to a 2010 policy by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) to require international medical graduates (IMGs) seeking to practice in the U.S. to graduate from an appropriately accredited medical school…
Exploring the interplay of discourses, jurisdictions and restratification in medicine and the implications for intraprofessional collaboration
This study builds on calls to explore the tensions and dynamics of intraprofessional collaboration and boundary work. It reaches beyond the literature describing the micro-level strategies deployed by physician subgroups to establish legitimacy and defend jurisdictions in the face of health care re-organization. Specifically, it offers a view of how macrosocial imperatives shape intraprofessional boundaries, relations, and the possibilities for c…
Faster, higher, stronger – together? A bibliometric analysis of author distribution in top medical education journals
INTRODUCTION: Medical education and medical education research are growing industries that have become increasingly globalised. Recognition of the colonial foundations of medical education has led to a growing focus on issues of equity, absence and marginalisation. One area of absence that has been underexplored is that of published voices from low-income and middle-income countries. We undertook a bibliometric analysis of five top medical educat…
Can the medical educator speak? The next frontier of globalisation research in medical education
Drawing Connections between four papers, the authors explore how recent writing demonstrates various ways of conceptualizing globalisation in our field, begging the question of "where next for globalization research in #MedEd?"
Power/knowledge
Breaking Borders
This article describes the authors’ personal experiences of collaborating across international borders in academic research. International collaboration in academic medicine is one of the most important ways by which research and innovation develop globally. However, the intersections among colonialism, academic medicine, and global health research have created a neocolonial narrative that perpetuates inequalities in global health partnerships. T…
The Velede? Conflict
Competent to provide compassionate care? A critical discourse analysis of accreditation standards
No prominent works on this page.
Recipes for medical education reform
‘I exist because of we’
Objectives Suboptimal adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) dramatically hampers the achievement of the UNAIDS HIV treatment targets. This study aimed to develop a theory-informed predictive model for ART adherence based on data from Chinese. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted in Shenzhen, China, in December 2020. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling, completing a survey that included sociodemographic characteristi…
Covid-19 in Ethiopia
T he COVID-19 pandemic is a time of many predictions and rapid learning. Early on, the World Health Organization (WHO) identified Ethiopia as one of thirteen countries in Africa as a top priority for COVID-19 preparedness Surprisingly and thankfully, while an early catastrophic outbreak was feared, the rise in COVID-19 cases in Ethiopia has continued to be slow, with few significant health systems impacts or changes in the patterns of morbidity a…
Competent to provide compassionate care? A critical discourse analysis of accreditation standards
Breaking Borders
This article describes the authors’ personal experiences of collaborating across international borders in academic research. International collaboration in academic medicine is one of the most important ways by which research and innovation develop globally. However, the intersections among colonialism, academic medicine, and global health research have created a neocolonial narrative that perpetuates inequalities in global health partnerships. T…
The Velede? Conflict
Faster, higher, stronger – together? A bibliometric analysis of author distribution in top medical education journals
INTRODUCTION: Medical education and medical education research are growing industries that have become increasingly globalised. Recognition of the colonial foundations of medical education has led to a growing focus on issues of equity, absence and marginalisation. One area of absence that has been underexplored is that of published voices from low-income and middle-income countries. We undertook a bibliometric analysis of five top medical educat…
Can the medical educator speak? The next frontier of globalisation research in medical education
Drawing Connections between four papers, the authors explore how recent writing demonstrates various ways of conceptualizing globalisation in our field, begging the question of "where next for globalization research in #MedEd?"
Power/knowledge
“It takes a village to raise a child,” university teachers’ views on traditional education, modern education, and future I integration in Ethiopia
Introduction Indigenous education has recently gained prominence in international debates for its role in addressing the social, economic, and political issues faced by African states. Ethiopia, like other African countries, had its education system based primarily on the transmission of socio-professional aptitudes, religious values, skills, and intergenerational knowledge as a way to preserve the social, cultural, and religious values of the Et…
Shapeshifters
INTRODUCTION: Global South researchers struggle to publish in Global North journals, including journals dedicated to research on health professions education (HPE). As a consequence, Western perspectives and values dominate the international academic landscape of HPE. This study sought to understand Global South researchers' motivations and experiences of publishing in Global North journals. METHODS: This study used a hermeneutic phenomenological…
An opportunity to be grateful for? Exploring discourses about international medical graduates from India and Pakistan to the UK between 1960 and 1980
INTRODUCTION: Following India and Pakistan gaining independence from British colonial rule, many doctors from these countries migrated to the UK and supported its fledgling National Health Service (NHS). Although this contribution is now widely celebrated, these doctors often faced hardship and hostility at the time and continue to face discrimination and racism in UK medical education. This study sought to examine discursive framings about India…
Probing the past
INTRODUCTION: Disparities of power between high-income (HICs) and low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have long characterised the structures of global health, including knowledge production and training. Historical case study analysis is an often-overlooked tool to improve our understanding of how to mitigate inequalities. METHODS: Drawing from the contemporary experience of collaborators from Canada and Ethiopia, we chose to examine the his…
Competing discourses, contested roles
Fit for purpose
The authors comment on the need for research to account for how political and power dynamics are embedded in accreditation systems to explore their unintended consequences
Examining the WFME Recognition Programme at 10 years
BACKGROUND: In 2012, the World Federation for Medical Education (WFME) evaluated and formally recognized the first agency in its Recognition Programme (RP). The RP was developed to review accrediting authorities in response to a 2010 policy by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) to require international medical graduates (IMGs) seeking to practice in the U.S. to graduate from an appropriately accredited medical school…
Exploring the interplay of discourses, jurisdictions and restratification in medicine and the implications for intraprofessional collaboration
This study builds on calls to explore the tensions and dynamics of intraprofessional collaboration and boundary work. It reaches beyond the literature describing the micro-level strategies deployed by physician subgroups to establish legitimacy and defend jurisdictions in the face of health care re-organization. Specifically, it offers a view of how macrosocial imperatives shape intraprofessional boundaries, relations, and the possibilities for c…
Addressing epistemic injustice (and ongoing effects of colonisation) through the Ethiopian intellectual tradition of Qiné
As global health and medical education scholars build their understanding of the historical and continuing influences of colonisation, the absence of non-western forms of thought in medical education remains a challenge. Qiné is an Ethiopian intellectual tradition and poetic practice dating back many centuries (predating colonialism) that continues to exist and has the potential to expand scholarly inquiry in critical spaces. The central tenet of…
Global research agenda for medical education regulation
BACKGROUND: Although medical education regulation is widely practised and given substantial resource and priority by policymakers and leaders, there is little empirical evidence to support it or guide regulation practices at an international level. In recent years, international and cross-border accreditation systems have gained prominence, often linked to migratory opportunities for graduating physicians. Given the high-stakes nature of regulati…
Exploring how structural forms of power shape the training of intraprofessional collaboration between family physicians and specialty physicians in outpatient workplace settings
Blind spots in medical education – International perspectives
BACKGROUND: All individuals and groups have blind spots that can create problems if unaddressed. The goal of this study was to examine blind spots in medical education from international perspectives. METHODS: From December 2022 to March 2023, we distributed an electronic survey through international networks of medical students, postgraduate trainees, and medical educators. Respondents named blind spots affecting their medical education system a…
A time to rethink CPD for the virtual space
The history of Nagasaki, the Japanese birthplace of Western medicine and its education
Over the past several centuries, Western medical knowledge and practices have circulated globally through colonial, missionary, and educational networks. Contemporary trends toward standardization continue to shape medical education worldwide, often reinforcing asymmetric power relations between the Global North and South. Although dominant models have frequently marginalized local knowledge and traditions, medical education has also involved pro…
A critical discourse analysis of the problem-oriented medical record
Reflecting on experiences of resident redeployment during the Covid‐19 pandemic
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Innovations in Medical Education (11 works) · Medicine (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Medical education (8 works) · Health care (6 works) · Public relations (6 works) · Accreditation (5 works)