Professor Gabrielle Finn is Associate Vice-President (AVP) for Teaching, Learning and Students at the University of Manchester. She is also Professor of Medical Education in the School of Medical Sciences. Gabrielle’s AVP portfolio focuses on: (1) assessment and feedback, (2) student voice, and (3) access, participation, and success.

Between 2020 and 2023, she was the Vice-Dean for Teaching, Learning and Students for the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health at the University of Manchester. Gabrielle was previously Founding Director of the Health Professions Education Unit (HPEU) and Chair of the Postgraduate Board at the Hull York Medical School (HYMS) where she worked extensively on widening access and curriculum development, including the implementation of Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships into medical programmes.

Prior to this she was Programme Director for the blended and distance learning courses for the MSc, Postgraduate Diploma and Certificate in Health Professions Education at HYMS, working with AdvanceHE to deliver this accredited programme. She has a track record in establishing  undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. 

Her research interests include:

• assessment (including inclusive assessment)
• professionalism
• Fitness to Practise (FtP)
• regulation
• remediation
• widening access and participation
• gender discrimination 
• curriculum development
• inclusivity
• arts and humanities
• Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships (LICs)
• Non-medical prescribing (NMP)
• anatomy pedagogy
• identity formation
• medical student selection / situational judgement tests 

Recently funded research includes 

• Barriers and enablers to clinical academic careers (focussing on gender and ethnicity) https://hyms.ac.uk/inequalities-in-clinical-academic-careers…
• General Dental Council: Exploring, understanding and evaluating experiences of Fitness to Practise at the GDC 

She was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2019, principally for her innovative pedaogy including developing the PaintME network to support the integration of living anatomy into healthcare curricula and on the use of wikis as assessment tools. (www.paintmeanatomy.com)

Gabrielle is also a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE), and was awarded a Karolinksa Institutet Prize for Research in Medical Education (KIPRIME) Fellow.

Gabrielle has a broad range of research interests. Her research spans both qualitative and quantitative paradigms.  She initially conducted her doctoral research exploring both anatomy pedagogy, and medical professionalism. Since, Gabrielle has established health professions education research units at Russell Group institutions. She has held Associate Editor positions and has an international reputation for high-quality education research. Gabrielle has over 150 peer-reviewed outputs including books, book chapters and journal articles, as well as in excess of 140 international conference presentations. She has been Principal or Co-Investigator on £1.2M of external research funding. She has supervised a number of PhD students to completion.  

Gabrielle has completed research on selection, including the use of UCAT, peer and self-assessment, as well as innovative pedagogy. She is an advocate for the use of arts and humanities with curricula, researching their use. She has a keen interest in exploring the hidden curriculum, publishing a body of work with Professor Fred Hafferty, challenging the notion of teaching by stealth.

 More recently, Gabrielle has been working on a range of areas pertaining to equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). With her doctoral students, she has explored widening access and the efficacy of Gateway to medicine programmes. In addition, Gabrielle has led a mutli-institution programme of research exploring gender and racial discrimination within undergraduate curricula, and clinical academia. Her work on exploring inequalities faced by clinical academics was co-funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), Academy of Medical Sciences, Cancer Research UK, Health Education England, Medical Research Council, and the Wellcome Trust. Such products have lead to a keen interest in feminist theory, and its application to health professions education research.

Gabrielle has worked extensively to research empathy and empathic dissonance. This was achieved by developing a new research method, love and breakup letters, in collaboration with her doctoral students and colleagues in user experience at Google. She has conducted longitudinal qualitative research, as well as using a range of methods such as rich pictures, IPA, audio diaries and participant-voiced poetry.

Coming full circle from her doctoral work, Gabrielle has been leading research using realist evaluation to explore experiences of fitness to practise (FtP), on behalf of the General Dental Council. Other grants include the Department of Health, Health Education England, and UKCAT (now UCAT).  

Current research interests: 

• Innovative Pedagogy
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion 
• Social Responsibility
• Identity
• Widening Participation
• Professionalism
• Assessment
• Empathy
• Anatomy
• Simulation
• Curriculum Development 
• Inter-professional education (IPE)
• Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs)
• Inclusive curricula and assessment 

Gabrielle is interested in hearing from potential PhD, MD, MSc and MRes students. She currently supervises a number of students working on Medical Education research. For supervision, please contact: [email protected]

Gabrielle teaches on the PGCert in Medical and Health Professions Education, including teaching the international distance learning cohorts. She also teaches on the University staff development programmes. 

Modules taught:

Pass or fail - who decides?

The art & science of teaching

The reflective educator

For anyone interested in research collaborations please contact: [email protected]

Some of Gabrielle's current research collaborations include:

• Professor Fred Hafferty  - The Mayo Clinic, USA
• Prof Claire Smith- Brighton and Sussex Medical School, UK
• Dr Megan Brown - Newcastle University, UK
• Dr Neera Jain - University of British Columbia, Canada

Post-doctoral research fellow: Dr Asieh Yousefnejad Shomali

Manchester based PhD students:

Ms Nebras Alghanaim - Virtual Reality in Inter-Professional Education (IPE). Co-supervisor: Prof Jo Hart 

Dr Rebecca Fisher - Challenging the ‘malestream’ curriculum: an exploration of gender and oppression within health professions education. Funded by Association for the Study of Medical Education -PhD studentship (2021 awards). Co-supervisors: Dr Megan Brown, Dr Silke Conen and Prof Paul Tiffin 

Dr Cristina Costache - Gender bias in pain.  Co-supervisors: Dr Megan Brown, Dr Silke Conen and Dr Bill Laughey. Funded by Reckitt. 

Gabrielle also supervises PhD students at Hull York Medical School, and the University of Edinburgh.