About the Editors

Judith Belle Brown, Ph.D., earned her degree in social work from Smith College, Northampton, MA, and is a professor in the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, the Department of Family Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at The University of Western Ontario (UWO), and in the School of Social Work at King’s University College, London, Ontario, Canada. She is the Chair of the Masters in clinical science (M.Cl.Sc.) and Ph.D. programs in family medicine at UWO, both of which are offered via distance education. She has been conducting research on the patient- centered clinical method for over three decades. Dr. Brown has presented papers and conducted workshops both nationally (Canada and the United States) and internationally (UK, Holland, Spain, Hong Kong, Sweden, New Zealand, Australia, Denmark, Argentina, Brazil, Japan) on the patient-centered method. She is the co-author of aPatient-Centered Medicine: transforming the clinical method and is a series editor along with Moira Stewart and Thomas R. Freeman of the following books: Substance Abuse: a patient-centered approach; Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: a patient-centered approach; Chronic Myofascial Pain: a patient-centered approach; Eating Disorders: a patient-centered approach; Patient-Centred Prescribing: seeking concordance in practice; Palliative Care: a patient- centered approach; and Pregnancy and Childbirth: a woman-centered approach.

She has also published papers dealing with patient-doctor communication in Social Science & Medicine; Family Practice: an international journal; Patient Education and Counseling; Canadian Family Physician; and Journal of Family Practice . Dr. Brown was a co-recipient of the American Academy on Physician and Patient Award for Outstanding Research in 1996. In the same year, Dr. Brown was made an Honorary Member of the College of Family Physicians of Canada. She was a co-recipient of the College of Family Physicians of Canada Best Original Research Article Award (2009) and the Dean’s Award of Excellence – Team Award for the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario (2010).

Tanya Thornton , M.D., CCFP, M.Cl.Sc.(FM), graduated from medicine at the University of Toronto and completed postgraduate training, a fellowship in academic medicine and graduate studies at The University of Western Ontario (UWO). She is an adjunct professor of family medicine in the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry at The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, and practices comprehensive rural family medicine in St. Marys, Ontario. She was Clerkship Director, Department of Family Medicine, the Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario from 2006 to 2008. Dr. Thornton has a special interest in both narrative writing and the patient-family physician relationship and has conducted research on how the electronic medical record affects the patient-family physician relationship (2006). Dr. Thornton teaches at UWO at the undergraduate, postgraduate and masters levels and was recipient of the 2011 Undergraduate Teacher of the Year for Family Medicine Award.

Moira Stewart, Ph.D., is a professor in the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine at The University of Western Ontario. She holds the Dr. Brian W. Gilbert Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Primary Health Care Research. Dr. Stewart has published widely on the topic of patient-centered care and has edited with Judith Belle Brown and Thomas R. Freeman an international series of books applying the patient-centred clinical method. Dr. Stewart is a research methodologist, advocating for a wide variety of research methodologies in primary care. She was part of a team that sponsored five international symposia and edited five widely used books in a series called Foundations of Primary Care Research. She is the principal investigator on a strategic training grant on interdisciplinary primary health care research called TUTOR-PHC. This program has educated 91 researchers from more than eight disciplines across Canada. Dr. Stewart is also the principal investigator on the DELPHI (Deliver Primary Healthcare Information) project, creating a researchable database of the Electronic Medical Record data of 25 family physicians in Southwestern Ontario. In a new Applied Health Research Network Initiative (AHRNI), Dr. Stewart is the leader of the System Integration and Innovation Research Network (SIIReN) as well as the Primary Health Care System (PHCS). Dr. Stewart is an honorary member of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (1991). She received the James Mackenzie Medal of the Royal College of General Practitioners (2004), the College of Family Physicians of Canada Family Medicine Researcher of the Year Award (2007), and the Martin J. Bass Recognition Award, Department of Family Medicine, The University of Western Ontario (2008). She is also co-recipient of the Dean’s Award of Excellence – Team Award for the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario (2010), and she also holds a fellowship in the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences (2010).