Dr. Anna MacLeod

Teaching is a calling. And Anna MacLeod is first and foremost a teacher. She’s taught across the education continuum, beginning her career as an elementary school French and music teacher. Eventually, she found her way to medical education through a series of unlikely opportunities, lucky breaks, and leaps of faith.

She would go on to receive a Master and a Doctoral degree in the broad field of Education. However, Anna remains surprised by how often she draws on the tools and strategies she developed as an elementary school teacher. Teaching, after all, is about engaging the senses, communicating clearly, and really listening to the people in front of you— whether they are small humans with ukuleles, or fully grown physicians with questions about clinical teaching.

During graduate study, Anna stumbled onto Feminist Theory—and it changed her life. She stopped seeing herself as just ‘quiet’ or ‘shy,’ for example. Studying theory, Feminist Theory in particular, gave her the tools to make sense of so many things in work and life… and she’s never looked back. Thus began a lifelong love of theory, a connecting thread between various medical education topics she would take on throughout her research career.

Anna is passionate about using theory to illuminate complex challenges in medical education. Her theoretical work shines light on everything from how we use technologies in teaching and learning (things like videoconferencing systems and part task trainers), to modalities like problem-based learning and simulation, and why some work is considered more important than others.

Theories help us see, and think, differently, so we can see medical education anew. If there is anything she is sure of, it is this.