Tracy Moniz (Associate Professor)
PhD (York University/Toronto Metropolitan University), MA (University of Western Ontario), BA (Hons) (University of Toronto)

Tracy Moniz is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University (MSVU). She is also an Adjunct professor in the Department of Women’s Studies at MSVU and affiliated scientific staff at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax. She is President of the Canadian Association for Health Humanities.

Dr. Moniz has a PhD in Communication and Culture, a Master of Arts degree in Journalism, and an Honours Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature.

Broadly, Dr. Moniz is interested in ways of knowing that challenge traditional paradigms, and she explores this interest through multiple paths. Foremost, she is interested in stories and storytellers and understanding how a sense of story enables people to make meaning of their own and others’ experiences. Her research interests include health humanities, narrative, writing practice and pedagogy, health communication, gender and media, and qualitative research methods. She pursues collaborative research that contributes knowledge across disciplines and at local, national, and international levels. Her work is published in journals such as the Journal of the American Medical Association, Academic Medicine, Medical Education, Medical Humanities, Perspectives on Medical Education, and Medical Teacher.

Currently, Dr. Moniz explores the role of writing to advance humanistic care in health professions education and practice, focusing on (1) uses of reflective writing in medical education and (2) the lessons learned from the narratives that health professionals, patients, and/or informal caregivers write about their experiences of illness and care. She facilitates workshops on narrative medicine and writing for reflection and resilience for learners at all levels across the health professions.

Her doctoral research focused on news media (mis)representations of women’s labour during the Second World War in Canada. She has continued to engage with questions of how gender ideology imprints itself on media discourse—past, present, and particularly in times of armed conflict. She is part of a network of regional scholars working to promote community storytelling around lived experiences of war and peace.

Dr. Moniz teaches undergraduate writing courses and graduate courses in areas such as health communication as well as gender and communication. Prior to joining the Mount in 2013, she taught at the University of Toronto (2005-2013) in areas such as expressive and historical narrative, business and media writing, and journalistic investigation. Over the years, she has worked in public relations, journalism, and professional writing and editing. She also ran a communication consulting business, providing communications support and education to private- and public-sector organizations.

Dr. Moniz supervises graduate theses in the following areas:

  •   Narrative
  •   Writing (professional, reflective, creative nonfiction, memoir, life writing)
  •   Health Communication
  •   Gender and Media
  •   Women and Work
  •   Journalism and Journalism History
  •   Qualitative methods (such as narrative analysis, thematic analysis, content analysis, media analysis, interview research)

Selected Publications

Journal Articles (Peer Reviewed)

Moula, Z., Bull, S., Okantey, N., Brown, M., Edleston, V., Crawford, M., Moniz, T. (2025 in press). A scoping review of programs of active arts engagement in international medical curricula. Perspectives on Medical Education.

Moniz, T., Melro, C., Watling, C. (2025). In many voices: Exploring end-of-life care through patient, caregiver and physician narratives. Medical Humanities, 51(1): 39-47. https://doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2024-012926

Moniz, T., Melro, C. M., Warren, A., & Watling, C. (2024). Twelve tips for maximizing the potential of reflective writing in medical education. Medical Teacher, 46(3): 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142159X.2024.2326093

Wangding, S., Lingard, L., Haidet, P., Vipler, B., Sukhera, J., Moniz, T. (2024) Disorienting or transforming? Using the arts and humanities to foster social advocacy. Perspectives on Medical Education, 13(1): 192–200. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/pme.1213

Manohar, S., Moniz, T., Haidet, P., Chisolm, M. S., & Balhara, K. S. (2023). Applying the Prism Model to design arts and humanities medical curricula. International Review of Psychiatry, 35(7–8), 576–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540261.2023.2254384

Moniz, T., Gaspar, C., Warren, A., Watling, C. (2021). Dual and duelling purposes: An exploration of educators’ perspectives on the use of reflective writing to remediate professionalism in residency. Medical Education, 56(2), 176-185. https://doi.org/10.1111/medu.14625

Moniz, T., Golafshani, M., Gaspar, C., Adams, N.E., Haidet, P., Sukhera, J., Volpe, R.L., de Boer, C., Lingard, L. (2021). The Prism Model: Advancing a theory of practice for arts and humanities in medical education. Perspectives on Medical Education, 10, 207-214. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40037-021-00661-0

Moniz, T., Golafshani, M., Gaspar, C., Adams, N.E., Haidet, P., Sukhera, J., Volpe, R.L., de Boer, C., Lingard, L. (2021). The Prism Model for integrating the arts and humanities into medical education. Academic Medicine, 96(8), 1225. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000004118

Moniz, T., Golafshani, M., Gaspar, C., Adams, N.E., Haidet, P., Sukhera, J., Volpe, R.L., de Boer, C., Lingard, L. (2021). How Are the Arts and Humanities Used in Medical Education? https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000003949

Moniz, T., Pack, R., Lingard, L., Watling, C. (2021). Voices from the Front Lines: An Analysis of Physicians’ Reflective Narratives about Flaws with the ‘System’.” The Journal of Medical Humanities, 42, 737-752. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10912-021-09690-6

Moniz, T., Lingard, L., Watling, C. (2017). Stories doctors tell. Journal of the American Medical Association, 318(2), 124-125. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2017.5518

See Dr. Moniz’s profile on Google Scholar for additional publications (2013-present).