In this personal talk, Pål Gulbrandsen will reflect on his slowly progressing discovery of complexity in human interaction. Medical training in the 1970’s did not provide tools to understand his patients’ illnesses and ailments. A year in psychiatry and a wise colleague opened his eyes to the importance of shame. A simple change in communication opened his patients’ lives to him. As his research career progressed, he discovered the limitations of medical sciences in understanding humans. With Arnstein Finset as a door opener, he learnt to know psychologists, sociologists, linguists, and philosophers. Their approaches enriched his understanding, and collaboration with them fuelled his learning and saved him a waste of life’s most precious gift: time.

Pål Gulbrandsen, MD, PhD, professor of health services research at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo. He specialized in general practice and public health, after 14 years he made his PhD in Social Context in General Practice. He then worked for four years as deputy editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association and subsequently headed two research units over five years. Altogether he has done a variety of health services research for 25 years, most of them focused on the doctor-patient relationship and clinical communication. For the last ten years, he has in particular focused on information and uncertainty in clinical talks, and he is now the PI of three projects exploring those themes.

The time of the webinar is 2pm – 3pm BST (British summer time)

Read the flyer here