Mary Ellen Macdonald, PhD

Research interests

Dr. Macdonald’s research program focuses on death and grief literacy, using community-based research approaches and ethnographic methodologies. She is working with local, national, and international colleagues on the following projects:

• Personalized Patient Assessment Tool (PPAT): Planning the spread in palliative care (NS Health TRIC Grant)
• Engaging Nova Scotian youth in grief literacy (VOICE Innovation Grant)
• Engaging young people in policy-making around end-of-life care (Health Canada)
• Grief and grief support needs in Canada: Testing the public health model of bereavement support (CIHR Project Grant)
• Queering grief: Grief literacy for LGBTQ+ (SSHRC)
• The oral effects of cancer therapy on children’s wellbeing (VOICE Innovation Grant)
• End of Life Doula International Research Group Symposium (Eaton Foundation)

Appointments

• J & W Murphy Foundation Endowed Chair in Palliative Care
• Professor, Department of Medicine, Dalhousie University
• Nova Scotia Health Affiliate Scientist (Research)
• Adjunct, Faculty of Dental Medicine and Oral Health Sciences, McGill University
• Affiliate member, Institute for Health Sciences Education, McGill University
• Core Investigator, VOICE: Views on Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics

Education and training

• New Investigator, Family Caregiving in Palliative and End-of-Life Care (University of Victoria)
• Post Doctoral Fellow, Pediatric Palliative Care (Montreal Children’s Hospital)
• PhD, Medical Anthropology (McGill University)
• Masters, Social Anthropology (Dalhousie University)
• BA, Cultural Anthropology (McGill University)

Brief bio

Mary Ellen Macdonald, PhD, is a social scientist (medical anthropologist) with an active research program focused on death and grief literacy. She holds the J & W Murphy Foundation Endowed Chair in Palliative Care with the mandate of contributing to palliative and end-of-life care research and practice across Nova Scotia. She has been researching death, dying, and grief for over two decades, and is particularly passionate about supporting death and grief literacy across diverse communities. She writes about this work in academic publications and at GriefMatters.

Awards

• 2022 to present: J & W Murphy Foundation Endowed Chair in Palliative Care
• 2017-2019: FRQS, Chercheur-Boursier Junior 2
• 2011-2019: FRQS, Chercheur-Boursier Junior 1

Service / activities

• Co-Director, Grief Matters
• Co-Chair, Grief Gatherings: A series of events to spread grief literacy across our communities (Annual autumn event).
• Palliative Care Network Council, Nova Scotia Health
• National Consultation Committee, Canadian Grief Alliance
• Senior editor, Canadian Journal of Public Health
• Editorial Advisor, Routledge Encyclopaedia of Death, Dying, and Bereavement

Professional societies

• European Association of Palliative Care
• Public Health Palliative Care International
• International Work Group on Death, Dying and Bereavement

Public and media engagements

• Macdonald, ME. Grief, memory, and caring for the dead. TEDxPugwash. June 9, 2024.
• CBC interview with Portia Clark: Efforts underway to create proposal for Canada’s national grief strategy. CBC Radio, Information Morning (Halifax), December 7, 2023
• Featured guest on Sickboy Podcast, Episode: Inked memories, tattoos and grief. September 2023
• Macdonald ME. Yardsales are often about grieving (not just good deals). The Globe and Mail, May 15, 2023.
• Expert Witness to Parliament’s The Special Joint Committee on Medical Assistance in Dying, Statutory Review of the Provisions of the Criminal Code Relating to Medical Assistance in Dying and their Application to mature minors, November  4, 2022

Selected recent publications

• Macdonald ME, Grief is a public health issue. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2024;115:367-370. https://doi.org/10.17269/s41997-024-00898-2
• Mellett J, Macdonald ME. Medical assistance in dying in hospice: A qualitative study. BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care, 2024;14:e1497-e1502. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjspcare-2021-003191
• Attaran Kakhki N, Garber P, Dudubo O, Salem A, Carnevale FA, Macdonald ME. Enhancing children's participation in dental research: A commentary. Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology 2024(In press). https://doi.org/10.1111/cdoe.12970
• Sofronas M, Carnevale FA, Macdonald ME, Bitzas V, Wright DK. “We are not the person we will be when these things happen:” Reflections on personhood from an ethnography of neuropalliative care. Nursing Inquiry (early view 2024):e12646 https://doi.org/10.1111/nin.12646
• Sofronas M, Carnevale FA, Macdonald ME, Bitzas V, Wright DK. More areas of grey: Ambiguities in neuropalliative care, Journal of Hospice and Palliative Nursing 2024;26(6)(In press)
• Macdonald ME, Bertrand A, Brousseau-Bellavance L, Bruder-Wexler A, Liu K, Rosberg M, Carnevale FA. Research, policy making, and practice with young people. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2023;114:161-164. https://doi.org/10.17269/s41997-023-00756-7
• Attaran N, Sharma A, Morris M, Dudubo O, Macdonald ME. What are the impacts of oral complications from cancer therapy on the quality of life of children? A protocol to update a scoping review. PLOS ONE 2023;18(11): e0290364. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.08.08.23293818
• Liu K, Siedlikowski S, Mellett J, Carnevale FA, Macdonald ME. Young people's perspectives on assisted dying and its potential inclusion of minors. Children & Society, 2023;37:1081–1101. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12748
• Passos dos Santos R, Macdonald ME, Carnevale FA. Moral experiences of children with medical complexity: A participatory hermeneutic ethnography in Brazil. Journal of Child Health Care. 2023;27(2):212-223. doi:10.1177/1367493522111215
  
• Slack-Smith L, Ng T, Macdonald ME, Durey A. Rethinking oral health in aging: Ecosocial theory and intersectionality. Journal of Dental Research. 2023;102(8):844-848. doi:10.1177/00220345231175061
• Macdonald ME, Siedlikowski S, Liu K, Carnevale FA. Introducing SAMMSA, a five-step method for producing ‘quality’ qualitative analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 2023;33(4):334-344. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323231154
• Hordyk SR, Macdonald ME, Brassard P; Okalik L, Papigatuk L. No time to grieve: Inuit loss experiences and grief practices in Nunavik, Quebec. Transcultural Psychiatry, 2022;60(6): 917-928. doi:10.1177/13634615221135423
  
• Breen L, Kawashima D, Joy K, Cadell S, Roth D, Chow A, Macdonald ME. Grief Literacy: A call to action for Compassionate Communities. Death Studies, 2022;46(2):425-433. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2020.1739780
• Cadell S, Reid Lambert M, Davidson D, Greco C, Macdonald ME. Memorial tattoos: Advancing continuing bonds theory. Death Studies, 2022;46(1):132-139. https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2020.1716888
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• Macdonald ME, Doughty J, Freeman R, Muirhead VC. Critically engaging vulnerability: Rethinking oral health with vulnerabilized populations. Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology, 2022;50:469-475. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdoe.12703
• Macdonald, ME. It’s time to make dental education ‘grief literate.’ Journal of Dental Education, 2021;85:1718– 1720. https://doi.org/10.1002/jdd.12753
• Wright, DK, Chan LS, Fishman JR, Macdonald ME. “Reflection and soul searching”: Negotiating nursing identity at the fault lines of palliative care and medical assistance in dying. Social Science & Medicine, 2021;289:114366. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114366
• Carnevale FA, Collin-Vézina D, Macdonald ME, Ménard J-F, Talwar V, Van Praagh S. Childhood Ethics: An ontological advancement for childhood studies. Children & Society, 2021;35(1):110–24. https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.1240
  
• Clelland D, van Steijn D, Macdonald ME, Connor S, Centeno C, Clark D. Global development of children’s palliative care: the picture in 2017. Wellcome Trust Open, 2020;5(99). https://wellcomeopenresearch.org/articles/5-99/v3
  
• Macdonald ME, Singh H, Bulgarelli AF. Death, dying and bereavement in undergraduate dental training: A narrative review. Journal of Dental Education 2020;84(5):524-533. https://doi.org/10.1002/jdd.12058
• Singh H, Carnevale F, Macdonald ME. Considering medical assistance in dying for minors: The complexities of children's voices, Journal of Medical Ethics 2020;46(6):399-404. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2019-105762
  
• Passos dos Santos R, Macdonald ME, Carnevale FA. A scoping review of the moral experiences of children with medical complexity in Brazil. Revista Brasileira de Enfermagem, 2020;73(2).
  
• Belanger E, Towers A, Tradounsky G, Wright D, Macdonald ME. Of dilemmas and tensions: A qualitative study of palliative care physicians’ positions regarding voluntary active euthanasia in Quebec, Canada. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2019;45(1):48-53. https://doi.org/10.1136/medethics-2017-104339