The presentation will be followed by 10 min Q&A and 30 min of guided networking led by
members of the rEACH Connectivity Group.

Appreciating the role of relationships in research

Facilitator – Jennifer Gerwing, Akershus University Hospital

Jennifer researches healthcare communication using video-recorded clinical interactions, focusing on interlocutors’ observable communication behaviours while talking together. She works in collaborative teams, so the research has a solid basis in dialogic theory, is relevant to clinical practice, and can be helpful for education and training. Her expertise lies in working inductively, tailoring systematic analyses to specific research questions. She currently works at the Health Services Research Unit at Akershus University Hospital (Norway) and the division of prehospital work in the Department of Nursing and Health Promotion at OsloMet University (Norway). Current collaborations include researchers from Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Canada, and the US.

Presentation summary:

In this presentation, Jennifer will share her occupational trajectory from an enthusiastic junior research assistant in a dialogic interaction laboratory group to a researcher who can pursue and support studies on discovering the details of how healthcare providers and patients talk together. She will use that trajectory to share some key moments that taught her about creating and fostering meaning in her work. In 1999, she began training as an experimental social psychologist, working with a group headed by the late professor Janet Bavelas. Her group designed and implemented dialogic experiments, collecting video recordings in the lab and developing bespoke microanalyses to test hypotheses. Jennifer’s PhD work was a departure: She had the opportunity to work with home videos of parent-infant interactions and demonstrated that her analytical approach worked in non-laboratory interactions. Upon finishing her PhD in Psychology in 2008, she struggled to reconcile her developing skills and hopes with available jobs. It was discouraging! She wishes she could have felt more optimistic because the last fourteen years have been interesting, fruitful, and fun. In this presentation, Jennifer will share a few things that she has found helpful so far. She has benefited from recognizing and reaching out to folks she can learn from and being alert to (sometimes unexpected) opportunities. She has learned to be courageous enough to envision possibilities without getting hung up too soon with the details of exactly how and when they will happen. She hasnurtured relationships with bright, fun people who have taught her the importance of trust, respect, and the ongoing learning process of multi-disciplinary collaboration.

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