PhD candidate on language barriers in unplanned medical care?

Increasing patterns of migration and globalization are increasing the linguistic diversity in all daily activities, at work and in public services.

A particular challenge is the interaction between culturally and linguistically diverse patients and healthcare professionals in an unplanned healthcare context (primary care and emergencycare). Although it is now generally accepted that miscommunication often occurs during these interactions (with possible negative impact on health outcome), the underlying mechanisms and therefore

also the solutions remain less clear.

The aim of MaLBUC is to develop theories and insights about how language barriers work and interfere with communication in culture-sensitive care. The project aims toidentify solutions to reduce language barriers, especially in circumstances such as unplanned care where the use of professional interpreters is difficult.Determining effective strategies for reducing miscommunication requiresexamining the micro-dynamics of patient consultations and analyzing the complex system of interfering factors. It builds on insights from different knowledgedomains, including medicine, health communication, interactional sociolinguistics and interpretation studies and involves all stakeholders(including healthcare providers, patients and their representatives).

The candidate will have the following assignments:

• Doctoral program involved Faculty (Medicine/Linguistics).
• Systematic literature study.
• Follow training on specific methodologies.
• Collection of primary data, fieldwork (audio and video recordings of consultations, interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders).
• Analysis, processing and reporting of the research results.
• Construction of theory around features of language-barriers in unplanned care / administration of culture sensitive care.
• Development guidelines for training stakeholders.
• Publications in international scientific journals (with peer-review process).
• Presentations during national and international conferences.
• Assignments of an organizational nature (study day,conference...).
• Assignments of an administrative nature (reporting,reporting, archiving, ...).