ICCH New Orleans conference deadline for abstracts April 24

The International Conference on Communication in Healthcare, which takes place in New Orleans October 25-28, 2015 has now posted key dates on its website. Deadline for abstracts is April 24. The abstract submission site opens on February 13. The conference is a must for people interested in communication issues in healthcare.

Full program 4th international OCHER workshop ready

Please find here the final program of the 4th international workshop that will be held on January 14-16, 2015 at Lørenskog, Norway. The workshop is open for invited people only, and 49 participants are registered. Here the program: Detailed program 4th OCHER 2015

38 abstracts accepted for the 4th OCHER workshop – program to be released soon

The program for the 4th international OCHER workshop is soon under way. We have participants from the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. The abstracts span a wide range of communication issues and methods, including shared decision-making challenges, conversation analytic and microanalytic approaches, studies on training issues, patient activation, and use of electronic support. 49 participants have registered. Due to the high number of participants, presenters will have only 35 minutes time slots.

New links to German and Spanish communication skills resources

For doctors with Spanish or German as their mother tongue, we have now posted new links to good resources in these languages. The Spanish link is to a group of Spanish doctors who organize communication skills training. The German link is to an 84-page Leitfaden (guide) to medical communication. The links are posted on the Resources part of our website.

New available tEACH courses in Cambridge, UK

The courses are held in March 2015, see Courses for details. tEACH is the teaching committee of the European Association for Communication in Healthcare. The tEACH Train the Trainers subgroup offers support and training for trainers and teachers of communication skills in health care across all professional groups. This support uses a skills-based and evidence-based approach to teaching communication skills. The aim is to help as wide a range of teachers as possible – so you’re invited whether you are a beginner trying to get started in your hospital, college, university, region or country or a more experienced teacher who is looking for help with teaching particular parts of your course. tEACH also aim to provide help across all the different types of healthcare teaching – for example medicine, nursing, midwifery, dentistry, physiotherapy and for undergraduate, postgraduate and practising clinician learners.

OCHER January workshop temporary program

The 4th international OCHER workshop takes place at its usual venue Hotel Triaden, Lørenskog, on January 14-16, 2015. Here is the program: Program 4th OCHER 2015 Aug 21 for invitation. Note that we cannot take more than 50 participants, and that we will include at a first come-first serve basis. All participants must produce an abstract by October 31. The registration form (last page of program) should be sent as soon as possible.

New Norwegian introductory book to medical communication

Pål Gulbrandsen and Arnstein Finset just released their book “Skreddersydde samtaler” (“Tailored talks”) on Gyldendal Akademisk. The book is meant for medical students and doctors, and is brief with lots of examples from different medical situations. Two chapters cover aims and concepts, three chapters the structure and skills for the consultation’s different phases, one chapter covers 21 specific challenges, and a last chapter summarizes the evidence. The brevity of the book is deliberate, as doctors are extremely busy and need short texts.

25 mill NOK proposal submitted to the Norwegian Research Council

A joint call for health services research proposals from all Norwegian health enterprises, administered by the Norwegian Research Council, led OCHER to submit its most ambitious proposal till now. With collaborating partners in five hospitals we aim to observe challenging encounters involving seriously or chronically ill patients, in order to come closer to an understanding of the connection between specific behaviours and patient understanding and involvement in decisions. The proposal, named Processes of information exchange and decision making in challenging clinical encounters (PIECE): Uncovering practices that affect patient safety and quality of care, will, if it succeeds, employ several PhD students and postdoctorals in the period 2015-2020.

Two invited papers in September’s special issue of Patient Education and Counseling

Two papers from OCHER members have just been published in the Patient Education and Counseling special issue on the top papers from the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare conference that took place in September 2013 in Montreal, Canada. Jennifer Gerwing (currently a postdoc at Ahus) and Anne Marie Dalby (currently a PhD student at Ahus) explores the semantic functions of physician gestures. Pål Gulbrandsen, with the same two authors and Eirik Ofstad (also a current PhD student at Ahus/Nordlandssykehuset) describes in detail two encounters which illustrate the far from optimal shared decision making in encounters even when physicians really exhibit strong efforts. The papers have been added on the publication list.

Speakers confirmed for the 4th international workshop

We now have keynote speakers/discussants for our research workshop in January 14-16 confirmed. We are happy to present important contributors from diverse fields, covering qualitative and quantitative approaches. Here are the names: professor Marla Clayman, American Institutes for Research and Northwestern University, Chicago, professor Anssi Peräkylä, University of Helsinki, and professor Jan C. Frich, University of Oslo. The program will be ready by the end of August.