Author: Pål

The 6th annual OCHER workshop has been scheduled to January 11-13, 2017. Save the dates. Venue and format will be as usual. An invitation letter will be sent out in August. If you are interested, but have not previously attended OCHER workshops, please contact Pål Gulbrandsen.

The conference is in Scandinavian language so the invitation follows in Danish:

Konferencen afholdes på Hindsgavl Slot i Danmark den 9-10. juni 2016. Kunsten At Kommunikere 2016 fokuserer på, hvordan vi som sundhedsvæsen bliver bedre til at interagere med mennesket, når vi kommunikerer med patienter og pårørende. Til konferencen vil vi sammen forsøge at finde svar på spørgsmål som: Hvad er sundhed for patienten, for den sundhedsprofessionelle og for andre aktører i sundhedsvæsenet og hvilken forståelse tager vi udgangspunkt i, når vi kommunikerer? Hvilke nye roller opstår i disse år for de sundhedsprofessionelle og for patienten, og hvilke nye kompetencer er der brug for? Hvad kræver det af kommunikationen, når vi vil inddrage patienten som menneske? Hvordan udforsker vi patientens potentiale og aktiverer dennes ressourcer bedst muligt?

Det er anden gang, at Kunsten At Kommunikere løber af stablen og som i 2014 sker det i et inspirerende miljø, hvor der er plads til dialog og refleksion. Der er denne gang mulighed for at deltage i workshops på dag 2, hvor stærke profiler indenfor kommunikation og coaching vil være facilitatorer. Mere information om konferencen og om tilmelding her.

BMJ Open yesterday published Eirik Hugaas Ofstad’s paper on a new taxonomy of medical decisions. The taxonomy is called DICTUM, and represents a valuable instrument for content classification in videotapes from medical encounters. Ofstad’s thesis, published in 2015, in which a preliminary version of this paper was part, was judged by the adjudicating committee as “a work that will stand out as one of the most important contributions in this field of inquiry.” The paper is available here, and DICTUM may be accessed by contacting Ofstad at eirikofstad@gmail.com.

You can find the program from the OCHER 2016 workshop here. The workshop had 45 participants, around 10 were newcomers, and we saw increasing participation from Sweden and Denmark.

Previously, we have announced professor Anna Lindström from Uppsala University as a keynote lecturer in the 5th OCHER workshop on January 13-15. Her lecture title is: “Conversation analytic Research in Scandinavian healthcare contexts”. In addition, two of our own seniors will provide keynotes. Senior researcher Jennifer Gerwing will give the talk: “Talking matters: linking contemporary dialogue theory to research on clinical communication”. The title of professor Arnstein Finset’s lecture will be: “Analysis of trouble talk in Medical consultations: implications for communication skills training”.

Professor Anna Lindström at Uppsala university, Sweden, has been confirmed as speaker for the OCHER Conference at Thon Hotel Triaden, January 13-15. She is a professor of lingustics and social interaction, and has previously participated at OCHER in 2014. We are still working on confirming the second keynote speaker in the upcoming event. Also, please not that we have decided that the dates for OCHER 2017 will be January 11-13.

For the first time the European Association of Communication in Healthcare (EACH) arranges a summer event with several teaching and research workshops. Teaching workshops are on simulated patients and participant role-play, workplace-based communication skills teaching and learning, methods for teaching cross-cultural communication, and teaching shared decision making, conversation analysis in teaching end of life care, and approaches to faculty development. Research workshops are on VR-codes, qualitative clinical communication research, mixed methods, how to write a scientific article, PLA research methods, and medical education resarch related to communication in healthcare. See www.each.eu for more information.

The OCHER group just received the news that Marla Clayman, senior researcher at the American Institutes forResearch and adjunct associate professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has been awarded a Fulbright scholarship. She plans to visit Gulbrandsen’s group at Akershus University Hospital from September 2015 to June 2016. This will be an important contribution to our research group, and we expect to develop interesting projects in our continuing efforts to understand information exchange and decision making in physician-patient encounters.

The week Feb 2-9, Pål Gulbrandsen is visiting a research group in Cologne to teach how to code videotapes with the Four Habits Coding Scheme, and how to teach the Four Habits to German GPs who also will get training in how to train other GPs. The Four Habits principles will be adjusted to needs presented in pre-visit focus groups. The project has received funding from the German Research Council. While he is there, Gulbrandsen will also run a workshop on shared decision making at the Cologne Center for Ethics, Rights, Economics and Social sciences of Health (CERES).

We have received funding for an 3- year PhD scholarship to conduct a study of consultations with multiple sclerosis patients, in which choice of long term treatment is an important issue. This task requires complex information procedures and discussions about treatment between physicians and patients. Please follow link to apply for the position. You will need to look for the position searching for these words: Ledig stilling som doktorgradsstipendiat ved Akershus universitetssykehus