Meet Patricia Thille, 2024 Rh Award Winner in the Social Sciences category

Dr. Patricia Thille, an associate professor of physical therapy in the College of Rehabilitation Sciences, uses sociological and, more recently, arts-informed methods to expose and disrupt stigma in health care. With a background in both physiotherapy and sociology, Thille focuses on issues such as body size, chronic pain and self-management in community-based care. 

Thille is the 2024 recipient of the Terry G. Falconer Memorial Rh Institute Foundation Emerging Researcher Award in the Social Sciences category, recognized for research that reimagines how care is understood, taught and delivered in ways that promote equity. 

UM Today caught up with Thille to learn more about her and the research she is undertaking. 

Tell us a bit about yourself and your research.

I’m a settler scholar who grew up in rural Saskatchewan on Treaty 6 territory. I’m a hybrid scholar—my first degree was in physiotherapy, and I’m a sociologist by PhD. I focus on health services and professional education, bringing in sociological theory and qualitative, increasingly arts-based, methods. My work is about disrupting discrimination in community health care—particularly around body size, disability and, more recently, chronic pain. 

Why is this research important?

For me, it’s rooted in a deep commitment to care and equity. Health care has been shaped by deeply rooted cultural prejudices—such as racism, ableism, sexism—that produce unequal outcomes. I’m interested in shifting practices, not just attitudes. Rather than understanding bias as something that lives in people’s heads, I look at how it’s reproduced through everyday routines and policies. The goal is to support access to care as a basic human right. 

What does the Rh Award mean to you?

It feels like a really lovely vote of confidence—that the work I’m doing matters and is seen as meaningful. Like many people, my research was disrupted by the pandemic, so this recognition means a lot. 

What do you hope to achieve in the future?

I’m part of the Critical Physiotherapy Network, a group of people with physio backgrounds who’ve gone on to study philosophy, ethics, sociology—fields that open up new ways of thinking about care. I’d love to see that work become more widely embedded in physiotherapy education and practice. I also want to keep putting sociology in conversation with health care to unsettle taken-for-granted ideas—like assumptions about the “self” in self-management—that often overlook people’s relationships, resources and realities. 

What about you might people find surprising?

I’ve never eaten a fast-food burger.  

Any advice for early-career researchers and students?

For early-career folks: find mentors. A peer, someone a few years ahead, and someone 10 to 20 years ahead—people who can help you navigate the job and care about you along the way. For students: say yes to different experiences, even ones that don’t feel like exactly your passion. That’s how you figure out what excites you, where your strengths are and what skills you still need to build. 

Spenser Smith