She completed her undergraduate and medical training at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario and moved to Halifax to complete a two year residency in Family Practice at the Dalhousie Faculty of Medicine. She is a certificant of the College of Family Physicians of Canada and received her Fellowship designation at the College in 2001. She also completed the University of Toronto. Five Weekend Fellowship in 2000 and won a Janus award for her research project. (360 degree evaluation of Medical Teachers)

What is health informatics? In the words of Dr. Noni MacDonald...: "Most of the way I've seen it defined is the intersection with health information, computer science and health care and health systems but I think that's very linear and very narrow in what it is. For me what Health Informatics is really is about is how do we take all of these tools and have everybody able to manage health, health care systems and their own personal health in a better way. That's whether you're the mayor of the city, whether you're the Dean of Medicine, whether you're the CEO of one of the biggest health organization or you're John Q Public who's just cut their finger. That's what it's all about."
Filmed at Dalhousie University during summer 2010. CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE VIDEO

During the years following her training she worked at the Halifax Infirmary Emergency Department, while practicing at the Penhorn Mall Medical clinic and building a practice at the Cowie Family Medicine Clinic in Spryfield, a vibrant community located near Peninsular Halifax. She practiced community & life span based family medicine, obstetrics, nursing home care, house call enhanced comprehensive services, and developed her skills as a clinical administrator, teacher/trainer for undergraduate and postgraduate residents in Family Medicine and scholarly activities. She was involved in one of the earliest pilot sites for Shared Mental Health Care in Nova Scotia at the Cowie Clinic and also pioneered the development and utilization of Electronic Medical Records and Electronic management of Clinical care at this clinic. She continues to hold her appointment of Assistant professor at Dalhousie University's Faculty of Medicine, and has worked closely with the Dalhousie Department of Health Informatics.

For seven years, she presented three weekly medical shows on the local ATV/CTV network , called "House Calls with Dr. AJ" which made her a household name thanks to the high viewership of the ATV Live at Five television show. She then presented a regular weekly medical column on the local CBC, Evening News at Six with anchors, Jim Nunn, Tom Murphy and Amy Smith. She has also presented information related to medical matters on Information Morning, C 100 and Kool 96.5 FM radio stations.

She currently practices in an urban, community based practice in Peninsular Halifax which models collaborative care across medical and complementary disciplines of healthcare.