Dr. Martina Kelly
Affiliations
Professor
Cumming School of Medicine, Department of Family Medicine
Contact information
Phone number
Office: (403) 210-6318
Background
Educational Background
Bach of Med and Surgery Medicine, University College of Dublin, 1994
M.A. Higher Education, University College Cork, 2007
PhD Medical Education, Maastricht University, 2019
Biography
Dr. Martina Kelly is a Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and Community Health Sciences and a practising family physician. Originally from Ireland, she studied medicine at University College Dublin and worked at University College Cork before moving to Canada. She completed her PhD in Health Professions Education at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, where she explored the role of touch in medical education.
Dr. Kelly has held a range of undergraduate and postgraduate leadership roles and is passionate about teaching, mentorship, and faculty development. Her research uses qualitative and interpretive methodologies, particularly phenomenology and hermeneutics, to explore how healthcare is experienced and understood. She is especially interested in doctor–patient relationships and nonverbal forms of communication, including embodiment, touch, presence, empathy, and silence. Her work also draws on arts-based approaches to foster more humane, relational, and reflective healthcare and health professions education.
Research
Areas of Research
My research is grounded in interpretive qualitative inquiry, with particular interests in phenomenology and hermeneutics as ways of exploring how people experience and make sense of healthcare. I am also interested in arts-based, participatory, and community-engaged approaches that create opportunities for dialogue, reflection, and shared learning between researchers, learners, clinicians, patients, and communities.
I study the relational dimensions of healthcare, with a particular focus on doctor–patient relationships and humanistic approaches to care. Much of my work explores nonverbal and embodied aspects of clinical practice, including touch, silence, presence, empathy, and communication. I am also interested in how clinicians learn to navigate complexity through a generalist approach to practice, and how generalism can inform the teaching and learning of medicine.
Courses
| Course number | Course title | Semester |
|---|---|---|
| MDCH 629 LEC 01 01 | Found Prac & Sci in Med Educ | 2020 |
Projects
An exploration of sound, listening, and silence in clinical practice. This emerging program of research examines how physicians experience the auditory dimensions of healthcare and how sound shapes relationships, attention, communication, and care.
A qualitative study exploring physicians' experiences of silence in healthcare. This work examines silence not as an absence of communication, but as a meaningful aspect of empathy, presence, and human connection.
A program of research investigating generalism as a way of thinking, practising, and teaching medicine. This work explores how clinicians manage complexity, uncertainty, and multimorbidity, and how these capabilities can be fostered in health professions education.
Community-engaged research with older adults experiencing homelessness and housing precarity. Working alongside community partners, this research uses participatory and arts-based approaches to better understand lived experience and support health system change.
Awards
- Best Doctoral Award, Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE). 2020
- Certificate of Merit, Canadian Association for Medical Education (CAME). 2021
- Gold Humanism Award , Association of Faculties of Medicine of Canada (AFMC). 2022
Are you the profile owner?
Login to edit.