Faculty Directory

• PhD (Bioethics), University of Manitoba
• MSc (Medical rehabilitation)
• BESS (Kinesiology)

• Certificate in Higher Education Teaching, University of Manitoba
• Interdisciplinary Neuroethics Diploma, The University of Anáhuac, Mexico and The UNESCO Chair in Bioethics and Human Rights
• Ethics Teachers Training Course, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and Airlangga University, Surabaya, Indonesia
• Clinical research ethics consultation skills course (2024), Harvard University
• Certificate in Governance and Policy Evaluation, United Nations University Maastricht (UNU-MERIT), in progress.

• International association for bioethics
• International association for education in ethics
• International Health Literacy Association

• Healthcare ethics
• Research methods
• Human anatomy

Currently, Dr. Villafranca’s research focuses on interpersonal dynamics between clinicians and moral reasoning in high stress medical contexts. As part of this work, he has published invited reviews and papers on the topic of disruptive behavior in the operating room. He has also developed tools to measure disruptive behavior and has spear-headed international surveys examining the issue. He has presented his work at conferences across North America, Asia, Europe, Oceania, and the Middle East, and has received awards for both academics and research. The impact of his research has been substantial. His 24 papers have been cited over 1700 times and his articles have gained attention on social media (with some having Altmetric scores within the 95th to 97th percentile of more than 20 million ranked studies), and by traditional media outlets, including the Canadian Broadcast Company, CTV news, the Winnipeg Free Press, and the LA times.

ONGOING RESEARCH PROJECTS

1.  Shining a Light on Shadows: Dark Network Theory as a Lens to Mitigate Disruptive OR Behaviour
2. The effect of institutional culture and personality factors on clinician responses to disruptive intraoperative behavior
3. “CURE” the patient and “Eradicate” the disease with a “Panacea”: The prevalence and predictors of clinical trial names suggesting improved participant outcomes
4. Split-Second Ethics: A Dual-Phase Study of Moral Reasoning in Paramedicine
5. Development and psychometric verification of scales measuring exposure to disruptive behavior in paramedicine September:
6. The effect of exposure to disruptive intraoperative behavior on the residency applications of medical students (2025-2026 project)

Invited presentations:

1. Operating room nurses association of Canada (nursing, national), “Shining a light on shadows: Dark Network theory as a lens to mitigate disruptive OR behavior”, May 24^th /2025, 60 minutes.
2. Operating room nurses association of Canada (nursing, national), “Disrupting the disruption: Reducing the incidence and impact of disruptive behavior in the operating room” May 2nd/2021, 60 minutes.

Abstract discussions (with oral presentation):

1. Villafranca, A. Developing psycholinguistic norms to help IRBs review consent form language. 16th World Congress of Bioethics 2022, Basel, Switzerland.
2. Villafranca, A. Studies that P.R.O.M.I.S.E. to H.E.A.L. and create an I.M.P.A.C.T.? A psycholinguistic analysis of 103,549 clinical trial names. 16th World Congress of Bioethics 2022, Basel, Switzerland.

Concurrent sessions (20-60 minutes):

1. Villafranca, A. A framework for developing and implementing vignettes in quantitative empirical ethics research. Canadian Bioethics Society 2019, Banff, Calgary, Canada.

Scholar Profile: Alexander Villafranca

1. Villafranca, A., Adams, B., Krestow, O., Forest, A., Yasinski, L. Transforming from victim to survivor: Strategies for clinicians to safeguard themselves, colleagues, and patients from disruptive intraoperative behaviour. Accepted by the Operating Room Nurses Association of Canada Journal. In press
2. Villafranca, A., Fast, I., Turick, M., Jacoboshn, E. Clinician responses to disruptive intraoperative behaviour: patterns and norms derived from a multinational survey. Can J Anaesth. 2024 Apr;71(4):490-502.
3. Fast, I., Villafranca, A., Heinrichs, B., Jacobsohn, E. (2020) Disruptive behavior in the operating room is under-reported: an international survey. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, volume 67(1): 177–185.
4. Villafranca, A., Hiebert, B., Hamlin, C., Young, A., Parveen, D., Arora, R. Avidan, M., Jacobsohn, E. (2019) Prevalence and predictors of exposure to disruptive behaviour in the operating room. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia; 66(7): 781–794.
5. Villafranca, A., Magid, K., Young, A., Fast, I., Jacobsohn, E. (2019) Abusive behavior in Canadian and US operation rooms. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia; 66(7): 795–802.
6. Villafranca, A., Fast, I., Jacobsohn, E. (2018) Disruptive behavior in the operating room: Prevalence, consequences, prevention and management. Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology; 31(3):366-374.
7. Hamlin, S., Villafranca, A., Benoit, P., Jacobsohn, E. (2017) Health habits of medical students during operating room rotations. Journal of Contemporary Medical Education; 5 (2), 39-43.
8. Villafranca, A., Kereliuk, S., Hamlin, C., Johnson, A., Jacobsohn, E. (2017) The appropriateness of language found in research consent form templates: a computational linguistic analysis. PLoS One, Feb 1; 12(2):e0169143.
9. Villafranca, A., Hamlin, C., Robinson, S., Rodebaugh, T., Jacoboshn, E. Development of scales to measure exposure and responses to disruptive intraoperative behavior. J Patient Saf. 2021 Oct 1;17(7): e607-e614.
10. Villafranca, A., Hamlin, C., Jacobsohn, E. (2017) Letter to the editor: Physical and psychological abuse in Canadian operating rooms. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. Feb; 64(2):236-237.
11. Villafranca, A., Hamlin, C., Enns, S., Jacobsohn, E. (2017) Disruptive behaviour in the perioperative setting: A contemporary review. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. Feb; 64(2):128-140.
12. Hamlin, C., Banghu, K., Villafranca, A., Banghu, M., Brown, R., Tenenbein, M., Jacobsohn, E. (2017) Participation of Canadian anesthesiology departments in undergraduate medical education. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. Jan; 64(1):16-28.
13. Govender, D., Villafranca, A., Parveen, D., Kereliuk, S., Jacobsohn, E., (2016) Appropriateness of Language Used in Patient Educational Materials from 24 National Anesthesiology Anesthesiology Dec;125(6):1221-1228
14. Jastrzebski, A., Villafranca, A., Sethi, S., Bellan,L. (2016) Safety and comparative costs of preoperative assessments for cataract surgery: traditional mandatory assessment versus a novel graded assessment system, Canadian Journal of Anesthesia. Jul; 63(7):842-50.