National Representative - Deputy
Vijay Agarwal

National Representative
Shishta Nadda Basu

National Representative
Eva Bitzer

National Representative
Beverley Bolton

National Representative - Deputy
Monica Broome

National Representative
Marianne Brouwers

National Representative
Richard Brown

National Representative - Deputy
Annelies Decloedt
After graduation as an equine veterinarian in 2008, I completed a PhD at Ghent University in the field of equine cardiology, with a focus on new techniques for echocardiography. Since 2012, I worked as a postdoctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders. In 2015, I was appointed as assistant professor in veterinary clinical and communication skills at Ghent University. With regard to clinical skills, I was responsible for the development of the skills laboratory which was introduced in 2016. I also developed the communication skills curriculum for the veterinary students, consisting of lectures and practical exercises including peer role play and role play with simulated clients. My research topic of interest is veterinarian-client communication, in particular challenges encountered during daily consultations such as dealing with questions about alternative medicine or motivating clients.

National Representative - Deputy
Catherine Delguste
Catherine graduated as a veterinarian from the University of Liege in 1999. She first worked as a field vet in France for one year, before coming back to the University as an assistant. She became an ECEIM diplomate (European College of Equine Internal Medicine) in 2007, and completed a PhD-thesis in 2008 in the field of equine clinical pharmacology. In 2012, she got a complementary degree in universitary education and became in charge of veterinary undergraduates competencies development, with a focus on EBM, clinical reasoning and soft skills development. In this position, she has been involved in the development of communication activities in the veterinary curriculum, in the clinical internships, and in various postgraduate education programs for healthcare professionals, in collaboration with psychologists of the University.

National Representative
Nicola Diviani

National Representative
Eva Doherty

National Representative
Hilde Eide

National Representative
Maria Rosario Dago Elorza

National Representative
Margarida Figueiredo-Braga
Psychiatrist and Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto, completed a Ph.D. at FMUP in 2009 I have worked as a psychiatrist in S Marcos Hospital of Braga and presently in private practice, and I have been certified as Psychotherapist and Psychotherapist Supervisor in Cognitive-Behavioural Psychotherapy since 2000. As a teacher, I am responsible for curricular units at the post graduate level and I also teach and supervise medical students in Clinical Communication and Medical Psychology. My research includes health professionals’ communication skills, communication skills teaching programs, motivational interviewing, shared decision making and the impact of clinical communication in health and e-health.

National Representative - Deputy
Andrea Gaisser

National Representative
Conor Gilligan

National Representative
Magdalena Horodeńska

National Representative
Wresti Indriatmi

National Representative
Brynja Ingadottir

National Representative
Michael Kaffman

National Representative - Deputy
Orit Karnieli-Miller

National Representative - Deputy
Stella Major

My interest in understanding and improving healthcare communication is longstanding, as can be seen from the range and array of teaching and research work that I have contributed to, as a faculty member at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, between (1995-2006) I also worked with colleagues in the United Arab Emirates, to find ways of enhancing communication skills teaching to medical students, who are non native English speakers, and we discussed the challenges we faced, especially in regard to the expression of empathy.   Since 2014, when I joined WCM-Q, I have been leading various courses in physicianship and patient care, where the primary focus is on health care communication and clinical skills and physicianship. My role as director of the simulation center, since 2014 - present, has permitted me to develop teaching activities for students using simulation based education, and simulated patients in particular, both in the in-person as well as in remote telemedicine communication. Most recently, our publication of the Web-OSCE in BMJ Stel, described how we transitioned from in-person clinical skills teaching to remote, using zoom, making every effort to optimize health professional trainees communication skills. I then sponsored a new bi-campus elective in Telemedicine with colleagues from the mother campus in NY, which was highly rated by the students, who joined us from Doha, Peru and Korea, using zoom. We used the ACH online checklist to teach students best practice in telemedicine communication, and we also embedded into the elective, a formal introduction in health literacy, how to recognize red flags, and gaps, and how to ensure effective communication, especially when in remote consultations. These are all new areas of expertise I have developed, and which I and my team are very keen to publish on, soon.   Since 2017, I have also been leading an annual symposium in simulation-based education for healthcare providers and educators, in Qatar. This year will be the 4th which we now have to conduct virtually. One of the benefits of this new "norm" is that we are able to have more regional attendees, and widen our community of educators and practitioners who use simulation as a modality in their teaching, research and practice.   I have held numerous senior administrative roles at all the different universities which I served at, including my role as deputy director of primary care education at my alma mater; Imperial College School of Medicine, in London between 2006-2008.   Please find below : 1- Updated biography http://vivo.med.cornell.edu/display/cwid-scm2009 2- Research bibliography https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/1h9kjuqzhfp5GW/bibliography/public/ 3- Link to relevant pages of the Clinical Skills and Simulation Center website: https://qatar-weill.cornell.edu/clinical-skills-and-simulation-lab https://qatar-weill.cornell.edu/clinical-skills-and-simulation-lab/scholarship Finally, I speak fluently English, French, Armenian and Farsi, conversational Arabic and elementary level German, and am passionate about working with diverse communities.  

National Representative
Gunnar Marden

National Representative
Emanuela Mazza
Mother of four children, with a degree in Literature, Emanuela Mazza is a professor in Medical-Patient Communication at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome and for many other Continuing Education in Medicine programs for Health Professionals. PCC - Professional Certified Coach by ICF, National Representative of EACH - International Association for Communication in Healthcare and NLP Master Trainer. In 2019 she started with Robert Dilts the SFM for Healthcare study. Emanuela is also the author of various books, written to remember her experiences and share them with others including When you wake up. History of a liver transplant, an autobiographical story that traces the history of her disease and The doctor-patient relationship identified not as an optional side dish of the health professions, but rather as a central element of the therapeutic path. She defines herself halfway between a traveler and an explorer. Her life purpose is to create value by giving back what she has received.

National Representative - Deputy
Julia Menichetti

National Representative
Chiaki Mishima

National Representative - Deputy
Jane Ege Möller

National Representative - Deputy
Marie Morris

National Representative
Gitte Thybo Pihl
I am a lecturer at the Bachelor of Nursing Programme and affiliated to the research department at University College Lillebaelt. My research interest is about shared decision making, patient centered care and empowerment. In my PhD I have been conducting a mixed methods study about informational needs and decision making in the context of a multicentre trial testing for non-specific effects of the BCG vaccine. My focus was on parental decisions about a vaccine - barriers, considerations and informational needs. The concept ‘lay epidemiology’ caught my interest as it described the complexity in the parents’ decision in contrast to the health professionals’ decision.

National Representative - Deputy
Pierluigi Politi

National Representative - Deputy
Maria Grazia Rossi

National Representative
Marlene Sator
Marlene Sator, PhD, linguist with a special focus on healthcare communication, professional communication trainer and psychotherapist in training under supervision. Worked as a researcher at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research of Bielefeld University, at University of Vienna in cooperation with Vienna General Hospital and at Heidelberg University Hospital, where she was involved in curriculum development and faculty development as well as teaching and research in the field of healthcare communication. At Heidelberg University, she coordinated the development of a national, longitudinal communication skills curriculum for undergraduate medical education. Since 2014 at the Austrian Public Health Institute, Department of Health and Society (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH). Within the Austrian Platform Health Literacy she is involved in implementing a national strategy for improving healthcare communication in Austria. Since 2016 National Representative of Austria for EACH.

National Representative
Anna Serkina

National Representative
Maria Stubbe

Chair of the Advisory Committee & Chair of the Networking Committee
Lode Verreyen
Lode was trained as physiotherapist and works as such in a large multidisciplinary private practice in Antwerp. He also was assistant at the department of Family Medicine and Primary Health Care of the Ghent University. There he was teaching communication to undergraduates of medicine, dentistry, and physiotherapy. He also was responsible for the training program of simulated patients. Within tEACH he is co-lead, together with Prof. Katrien Bombeke, of the Work Place Based Teaching Tips group.

National Representative
Andy Ward

National Representative
Alan Weber
Dr. Alan S. Weber, PhD, has taught literature and the Medical Humanities–including the history, philosophy and sociology of medicine, narrative medicine, communications in healthcare, and Islamic Medical Ethics–through writing intensive courses at Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar for the past fourteen years. He has held previous appointments at Cornell University, the State University of New York, and the Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of a widely used textbook on the history of science and medicine, 19th Century Science (2000) and managed the history of science journal Isis. He has published over 140 articles, books, and book chapters in a wide variety of fields, including e-learning, healthcare communications, education, literature and medical history. He has directed a number of narrative medicine and medical humanities projects in Qatar at the national level, including a public brochure on Health Website Reliability, an Arabic/English book of patient education cancer survivor stories for the Qatar Cancer Society, a QNRF nationally-funded research project on Literature and Medicine, six volumes of medical student essay writing, and the first cross-disciplinary Art and Medicine undergraduate course in the Persian Gulf (with Stephen Scott, M.D.). He conducted an interventional educational trial on the use of graphic novels in medical ethics teaching in 2015. He has organized and Co-Directed seven ACCME-accredited workshops on integrating the health humanities into clinical practice at WCM-Q. He has delivered Grand Rounds in Healthcare Communication at Hamad General Hospital, the largest public hospital in Qatar. He was the lead organizer of the 1st International Conference on the Medical Humanities in the Middle East (http://qatar-weill.cornell. edu/event/medical-humanities-in-the-middle-east/committee /profile/alan-s-weber) and also organized two national conferences on the teaching of English in Qatar in 2009-2010. His research on Internet Health websites in the Middle East won first prize in 2015 in the Qatar National Research Fund’s annual research competition, and he serves as the Qatar National Representative for the International Association for Communication in Healthcare (EACH). He has also published base-line studies on medical education, provider-patient relations and communication in Qatar. He contributed a chapter to a collection that won the 2017 Outstanding Book Award from the U.S. National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). He is the Lead Organizer and Committee Chair for the First International Conference on Healthcare Communications in the Middle East (November, 2020).

National Representative - Deputy
Sarah J White